On Tuesday, 30 April at 7 pm Melissa Oddie a Canadian bee scientist who has been working with varoa tolerant bees for several years in Norway will give a short talk on the subject at Arataki honey Havelock North. I have met with Melissa several times in Norway and her research is quite fascinating. She will be in New Zealand on holiday but has kindly volunteered to talk to the beekeeping fraternity. All beekeepers welcome.
Varoa resistance in bees.
- Thread starter John B
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I don't think Melissa would mind if somebody wants to record but it won't be me as I'm not that technically capable.
Melissa's presentation was fascinating.
Always remembering that conditions are very different in Norway , basically Melissa went to Norway to study a beekeepers hives they had not been treated for nearly 20 years (buckfast) and she then tried to find and breed the same resistance traits in carniolains.
This has been done successfully. The resistant bees uncapp and re-capp the brood sometimes multiple times and the best hives are the ones that do this the most accurately i.e. find the varoa.These bees do not remove the brood. It is unclear why this results in varoa control but there appears to be more than enough evidence that it works. All of this is done by selection and then natural mating rather than AI.
I would have to study Melissa's findings a lot more to be able to answer every question but you can see this type of uncapping\capping in New Zealand once you know what to look for and I saw it yesterday in my better bee Queen.
This type of resistance has been found in multiple other countries.
It will be in New Zealand but because it doesn't seeem to be found in drone brood it may not control varoa sufficiently here but it would definitely help keeping hives healthy and alive.
Always remembering that conditions are very different in Norway , basically Melissa went to Norway to study a beekeepers hives they had not been treated for nearly 20 years (buckfast) and she then tried to find and breed the same resistance traits in carniolains.
This has been done successfully. The resistant bees uncapp and re-capp the brood sometimes multiple times and the best hives are the ones that do this the most accurately i.e. find the varoa.These bees do not remove the brood. It is unclear why this results in varoa control but there appears to be more than enough evidence that it works. All of this is done by selection and then natural mating rather than AI.
I would have to study Melissa's findings a lot more to be able to answer every question but you can see this type of uncapping\capping in New Zealand once you know what to look for and I saw it yesterday in my better bee Queen.
This type of resistance has been found in multiple other countries.
It will be in New Zealand but because it doesn't seeem to be found in drone brood it may not control varoa sufficiently here but it would definitely help keeping hives healthy and alive.
is this in writing anywhere we could read it?
there has been many people claiming this sort of thing over the years. so i like to see the proof. there is other factors that can be at play.
i don't see any reason someone could not do it here, hardest thing is it takes time. but AI could speed it up a bit. however i could see it being a victim of its own success.
not sure whats happening with betta bees these days, last i heard that was up for sale and its plug was about to be pulled.
Bettabees ran out of funding when the money went out of beekeeping, and the beekeepers who were shareholders could not afford to fund it any more. It was put up for sale, and eventually the assets were purchased by Frans Lars, who had been managing it when it was Bettabees.
Frans is continuing the good work and has now made breeder queens available to anyone, not just the 40 or so shareholders who had sole rights to them when it was Bettabees.
Some time back I spent a few days with Frans, he has some lovely bees and very high standards for his selection criteria. He uses AI, to be able to mate selected queens with selected drones, ie, best with best. If you want one of his inseminated breeders, you can touch base with him and buy one. I think he sells normal open mated production queens also.
Frans is continuing the good work and has now made breeder queens available to anyone, not just the 40 or so shareholders who had sole rights to them when it was Bettabees.
Some time back I spent a few days with Frans, he has some lovely bees and very high standards for his selection criteria. He uses AI, to be able to mate selected queens with selected drones, ie, best with best. If you want one of his inseminated breeders, you can touch base with him and buy one. I think he sells normal open mated production queens also.
Thanks for the message John B.
I'll add a little.
Most likely Melissa meant bees from the island of Gotland, but to be honest, I didn’t know that it was buckfast.
This was a varroa survivor bee project.
I think you can find more detailed information on the Internet.
Resealing the brood is called recapping. The essence of this mechanism is that in an open cell the tick development cycle is disrupted. Perhaps protonymphs and deutonymphs dry out when exposed to open air. (*photo of the brood of the Primorsky bee with the brood opened)
I'll add a little.
Most likely Melissa meant bees from the island of Gotland, but to be honest, I didn’t know that it was buckfast.
This was a varroa survivor bee project.
I think you can find more detailed information on the Internet.
Resealing the brood is called recapping. The essence of this mechanism is that in an open cell the tick development cycle is disrupted. Perhaps protonymphs and deutonymphs dry out when exposed to open air. (*photo of the brood of the Primorsky bee with the brood opened)
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Tristan, AI is just a tool. And success in this area depends only on a person, his knowledge, experience and intuition. Since we work with living organisms, there are always factors that are difficult and sometimes impossible to predict, how a combination of genes will occur, for example.
Inbreeding is also considered a harmful phenomenon in bees, but if you work with it correctly, you can consolidate the desired characteristics.
In the initial stages of working on VSH AI, this is the only way to work if you do not have varroa surviving bees)