preserving the drones

[BETSY TRUE]

I enjoyed one of the instructional videos on bee heredity and am reconsidering my practice of drone trapping of mites. I’m wondering if one can remove capped drone comb and allow it to emerge in a special nuc that you treat right away with formic acid strips. How could this work to maintain one’s DCA for the good of the local queen and not breed mites willy nilly. What else would I need in that drone nuc?

I’m thinking of maintaining this nuc all summer to accept drone comb as needed to remove the mites from the regular hives.

[jeanne hansen]

Betsy,

Sounds like an interesting idea!!  You would need enough workers in this nuc to regulate the temperature of the drone brood, so the drones can develop properly under their cappings.

To ensure the happiness of these workers, you would need a queen.  Oh, joy!  It is starting to sound like a regular hive.  Maybe you could fool the workers by adding a queen cell - that would keep the hive happy until the new queen got mated 3 weeks later.  You could even leave her in there to lay eggs as best she could, undergoing almost constant miticide stress and over-abundance of drones!!

 Or you could just let it be a queenless hive.  Workers not feeding brood live a long time.  When all these drones emerge, they will still feel the nuc hive is their home.  They will go out to mate, and come back to their home.  It would be really interesting having a hive populated by a majority of drones.  Adult bees barely need to consume any pollen.  I wonder if drones even need to consume honey once they are mature??

This sounds like an extremely interesting experiment.  I hope you do it, and tell the rest of us all about it!!

 

Thanks!
Jeanne Hansen
824 Jacobson Ave
Madison, WI 53714
608-244-5094

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From: BETSY TRUE <bt...@wisc.edu>
To: "mad...@googlegroups.com" <mad...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2016 5:39 PM
Subject: [madbees] preserving the drones

I enjoyed one of the instructional videos on bee heredity and am reconsidering my practice of drone trapping of mites. I’m wondering if one can remove capped drone comb and allow it to emerge in a special nuc that you treat right away with formic acid strips. How could this work to maintain one’s DCA for the good of the local queen and not breed mites willy nilly. What else would I need in that drone nuc?

I’m thinking of maintaining this nuc all summer to accept drone comb as needed to remove the mites from the regular hives.

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[Joseph Bessetti]

If the colony needs mite treatments to survive, what good is it to pass on those genes? 

Get some VSH, hygenic, or mite-biter queens and you might consider it a positive contribution to the gene pool, otherwise what's the point?

Joe

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of BETSY TRUE <bt...@wisc.edu>

Sent: Monday, September 26, 2016 5:39 PM

To: mad...@googlegroups.com

Subject: [madbees] preserving the drones

I enjoyed one of the instructional videos on bee heredity and am reconsidering my practice of drone trapping of mites. I’m wondering if one can remove capped drone comb and allow it to emerge in a special nuc that you treat right away with formic acid strips. How could this work to maintain one’s DCA for the good of the local queen and not breed mites willy nilly. What else would I need in that drone nuc?

I’m thinking of maintaining this nuc all summer to accept drone comb as needed to remove the mites from the regular hives.

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[Greg V]

Betsy,

If you want to put your time and resource into this "drone operation", I propose - you should instead do service to the community and cultivate Russian drones (or whatever Joe proposed).
Just get an old Russia queen (or something similar) that produced mostly drones (probably someone could just donate an unwanted specimen).
And just go for it and put out the swarms and swarms of mite-resistant drones.
We'll thank your for this.
Seriously.

If/when I have more hives, I might just do it myself.


On Monday, September 26, 2016 at 5:39:30 PM UTC-5, Betsy True wrote:

....... What else would I need in that drone nuc?
I’m thinking of maintaining this nuc all summer to accept drone comb ..........

[BETSY TRUE]

It’s a nice thought, Greg V, but I’m talking about preserving the drones from all my mixed race hives, not setting up a drone manufacturing hive. For your scenario, all my hives would have to have a Russian queen for the genetics to be Russian and that would mean buying all new queens and converting all my hives. I was not talking about such a major undertaking.

I’m thinking that destroying my drones is a disservice to the beekeepers around me, that a well mated queen is important for those who are raising their own queens, throwing swarms and supercedures. (For those that buy mated queens, my drones are not going to help.)

I noted from the video that it’s important for bees to outbreed.

[Greg V]

Well, then you will be producing a mixed bag of unknown traits; either bad or good.
Do we have drone shortage?
I just don't know, maybe we do and you are helping out.
Maybe we don't and then your work does not matter.

The idea of retiring a queen with good traits into a retirement box is a good one though.
Put her with some help into some spare/old box. Live them alone.
Even for a summer, let her produce good drones.
Don't support the box into the winter - if they die, they die.
Not much to lose; something to gain.

On Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 7:58:00 AM UTC-5, Betsy True wrote:

 ........I’m talking about preserving the drones from all my mixed race hives, not setting up a drone manufacturing hive. .......

[Paul Zelenski]

This would not be a service. From everything I've read, Russian hybrids are nasty. Russian bees also have very different management techniques. So, I actually always worry that my neighbors might keep Russian bees. It would cause havoc with my hives. 

On Sep 26, 2016, at 10:45 PM, Greg V <voro...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Greg V]

So, Paul, that lady from Washington island (WI certified or whatever) is doing disservice to her neighbors by having Russian bees.
This is the logic, I guess, because this is generating Russian bee hybrids all around.

Should we forbid the Russians then since this is the only way to stop the hybrids?

[Paul Zelenski]

She's on an island. A perfect place for a unique strain of bees. I'm sure she'd be unhappy if I showed up with Italians. 

[Paul Zelenski]

I also have little experience with Russians. I only k ow what I've read. Someone who keeps them could speak more intelligently on the topic. But it sounds like they are different enough from the Carnis and Italians that they need to be managed differently and it is hard to keep them yourself without always purchasing your new queens. 

On Sep 27, 2016, at 10:00 AM, Greg V <voro...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Tim Aure]

Plus the first queen that's put out from that hive is a mutt, bread by as many as 15+ drones from various hives. Like America today, Two or 3 generations later we are ethnically diverse... remember Tevya's daughters on Fiddler on the Roof. If we have a large apiary close by that will have a greater tendancy to influence because of the amount of bees but most of us are hobbyist with a few hives & we have no totally closed system 🐝 

Sent from my iPhone

[Paul Zelenski]

Exactly. My point is that (from my reading) Russians don't make great mutts with our other strains. 

[harold steinberg]

I have Russian hybrids and they are not nasty.

In fact, they produced more honey this year than the mutts in my other hive, they fly in rainy wet weather, cloudy days, and I have not been able to find but one or two mites on them. My mutts were covered with mites and they are five feet away from my Russian hybrids.

I have not noticed a temperament difference between the two hives. They both seem to be just as grumpy on cloudy days if you bother them, and happy go lucky on warm sunny days.

Both of these hives are right next to my patio that we use all the time. I keep them close because I find them very entertaining to watch.

[Joseph Bessetti]

I think it's funny that the Russian bee gets the blame.  Pure Italian bees are generally calm.  Pure Russian bees are generally calm.  Exceptions exist of course.  However, when you cross the Italian with the Russian they hybrid is nasty, and everyone *automatically* assumes that it is the Russian bee's fault!   

Brother Adam's published work notes numerous hybrids being quite aggressive.  A number of those were Italian crosses...    probably the fault of the other bee too?

Maybe the Italian bee is the poor choice in this equation?

Joe

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Paul Zelenski <paulze...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 10:33 AM
To: mad...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [madbees] Re: preserving the drones

 

[Greg V]

Thanks, Adam!
Here you go - first hand account from a person we know.

Basically, if someone says something on the net anonymously - reliability of that is low.
The net is driven by hype and tends to favor loud/scandalous news - aggressive bees make good news.
Non-aggressive bees make no news and just go unannounced and less favored.

I am yet to see scientific, published measure the aggressiveness of some well-defined bee hybrid (which is even near impossible).

[Greg V]

And yet you have every right to show up with your bees.
Someone will, eventually.
All in all - hybrids we are, here in USA.

[Greg V]

To clarify: I was the one who said the Russians can be very aggressive.

I observed first hand how our own bees shut down the neighborhood entirely (due to our own stupid honey harvesting - bad timing).
We had some aggressive hives that (naturally) were interbreeding within the same area with other local mutts of similar origin.
Sourthern bee just could not survive in 6 months of harsh, non-stop winter - nothing to speak of as far as hybridization.
Caucasians/Italians were tried to be sure - well, they could not hold the poop that long. Trivial end.

And yet the US hybrids are totally different ball game because South meets North with everything in between also tossed in.
Who is to blame for bad traits - unknown.
The mix of genes is working in mysterious ways

[Matthew Hennek]

How do any queen breeders ensure genetic purity these days?  This is a notion I've probably given too much thought to.  We talk about carni's and italian's and russian's but at the end of the day aren't they all mutts?  

How many queen breeders don't have neighbors? Don't have wild feral colonies nearby?  

How many VSH queens that are sold today actually VSH (i.e. the breeder regularly does the test)?  

What percentage of "italian's" genes actually italian?  Carni's?  These days, with no new introduction of "pure" black/white lines are we not just grey? Perhaps dark grey some places and light grey others.

   

It seems like it's mainly marketing with a little truth thrown in.  

[Greg V]

This is how it is with bees.
These bugs are hard to control and that's the end of it.

And btw, I believe AHB genes are totally present up North too.
Because if they can then they are.
Just got mixed in with the rest of the Southern soup and shipped up North and maybe surviving in some genetic combination (or propped up by sugar feeding).
See the number of late, little swarms going up lately? - seems like AHB trait to me; hehehe.....

On Tuesday, September 27, 2016 at 1:25:06 PM UTC-5, Matthew Hennek wrote:

........ it's mainly marketing with a little truth thrown in.  

[Matthew Hennek]

I wouldn't be surprised if that is true greg.  Perhaps bees with >25% AHB (africanized honey bees) genes can't survive wisconsin winters, but what about 1% or 3% or 5%?  Bee Weaver apiaries out of Texas had issues with mean bees, but through breeding has calmed them down.  I purchased 3 queens from them last year and they survived winter and I wouldn't doubt that they have some minor component of AHB.  There are wing size tests as well as genetic tests for AHB content, but I don't know how many generations of crossbreeding with non-africanized bees would be required to pass such tests.

As far as swarming...I found this year was very quiet compared to the last two years.  Look back on the list and there are only a handful of posts this year for swarms.  Perhaps people are contacting swarm catchers other ways (i.e. craigslist).

[Joseph Bessetti]

Genetics can be controlled by artificial insemination of the queens.  This how your pure VSH, Hygienic, Russian strains can be maintained.

The big queen producers open-mate everything.  I suppose by flooding the area with a high density of queens/colonies/drones matching the characteristics (color) of the strain they want to produce they generally end up with that. 

Joe

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Greg V <voro...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 1:36 PM
To: madbees

Subject: Re: [madbees] Re: preserving the drones

[Greg V]

Well, it maybe more correct to compare the numbers of little swarms in general over the last 10-20-30(?) years....
Whenever the AHBs did show up in North America, their genes started drifting around, up and down, like it or not.
With US being such an open place and bee-trucks zipping right and left and up/down, genetic invasions can happen over one season all over the place. Totally.
Not that all of them will survive, but some will.
 
(Remember my toy swarm at end of July? - this would be a fine swarm somewhere down South America or in African bush, right on a tree branch where I found them).
What is with these open-comb nests we've been cutting up here? - could be just another African thing.

Back to the topic:
be sure to get neighbors' permissions to do the drone generation and get your bees certified by fellow beeks before you screw up other bees in the area - I am kidding here, but the discussion just exposed all kinds of issues; 

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[Matthew Hennek]

Perhaps for scientific research studies, but the masses don't purchase AI queens as they are quite expensive ($200-500)  and any daughter queens will be open mated anyway.  So your recessive genes like VSH need an abundant VSH drone hives nearby to maintain purity.  Although some research shows that some mite resistance can be gained through this act anyway.

It still seems like marketing to me...marketing a genotype based on phenotype:

Dark--> Russian

Kinda dark --> Carni's

Light --> Italian

Super light --> Cardovan

  

It's like calling all blond-haired blue-eyed people Swedish or all red-haired people Irish.    

I like diversity...get a little bit from several sources and let nature sort it out.

[Greg V]

Just as well make some soup and see what happens.

So, with that an old drone queen retirement community sounds like a good idea to me.
This also fits nicely with my "drones-for-food" ideas.
I kinda like this drone propagation thing.
Be kinda cool to get some old, used-up "quality" queens for free and start a drone farm with them.
Hahaha.

[Tim Aure]

Still doesn't answer my thoughts about bees not being pure after the new queens go out and mate with local drones. Except for 'Washington island" where it's probably possible to have a more closed gene pool, Or a high concentration of "Russians" in a local area. It seems like an idealistic but moot point trying to maintain one breed of honey bee. What I have seen, with Joe, is that  local feral bees are significantly smaller and as Dee Lusby, Michael Bush and the Fat bee man claim, more mite resistant or have a mite grooming tendency.  The brought in bees have been 'super sized' from their natural size through years of comb manipulation and seem to regress to their more natural size if left to them selves. Am I wrong with my prognosis?
Sent from my iPhone

[Matthew Hennek]

Not trying to stir the pot, but I have a hard time buying the claim that feral bee's in areas where beekeeping are prevalent are any different genetically/morphologically from the typical "California/South" package bee.  Perhaps in area's where beekeeping is not so prevalent, but there's enough people throwing off swarms in area's like southern Wisconsin to completely swamp any sort of "natural" feral populations. These area's have a regular yearly input of "unnatural sized" bees.  

[Tim Aure]

I've been with Joe on some feral hive cut outs and seen some others that he's gotten and they are significantly smaller. Swarms thrown from packages are larger. The history is that the package bee industry has upsized our honeybee for over 100 years, going back to A.I. Root -I believe. Michael Bush goes into some detail about this. I know it's controversial in our group and everyone 'cooks stew differently' but that what I've seen. The porch trap out that I got 2 nucs out of mid summer were also small cell bees. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Martin W.]

Randy Oliver has a good article on feral bees. My summary recollection.

- good precident and some studies to support wide spread existence of self-sustaining colonies of local feral bees
- there is a risk to ferals from domesticated bees, however,
- feral bees are genetically distinct from commercial bees
- feral populations are maintained due to strong selective pressure by local conditions
- feral populations are a strong potential under-used resource for Beekeepers
- I don't recall a discussion of any physical mechanisms that might influence breeding between the two populations. Interesting question. Size? Other? None?

My observation...a lot of beekeepers reporting success with minimum inputs into their hives suggest they build their apiaries using swarms.

Regards,

Martin

[Matthew Hennek]

Interesting observations:

If my memory serves me, ~60,000 packages are brought into wisconsin every year.

Wisconsin area 65,000 square miles

Typical feral hive concentration typically thought to be 1-3 per square mile

Of course the package bees aren't evenly distributed and don't all swarm and I'm not making correlations, but it gives a perspective of the possible number of managed hives vs feral hives in our great state.

[Joseph Bessetti]

My first-hand experience would agree with most of these points.  

The risk to ferals from "domesticated bees" is no different than what people on this list have complained about numerous times:  Untreated, non-resistant bees are overwhelmed by varroa; the feral bees rob out the crashing colony and pick up mites and disease.  Resistant or not, a heavy dose of mites late in the season is a serious and often deadly stress on the colony.

I can't speak to them being genetically distinct, though I do see differences in color that would strongly suggest that they are.  However, genetics isn't the only factor that influences mite resistance, and it might not even be the biggest factor.  

Smaller size is the one factor that I see over and over again.  The true feral bees are smaller, often significantly so.  I've measured natural worker comb from feral hives locally as small as 4.9 mm, with 4.9-5.1 mm being typical.  An escaped "domestic" swarm or a package put on foundationless frames will usually draw natural comb between 5.2-5.4 mm. 

There is some research that supports size as a factor that can segregate breeding populations.   There is also data supporting temperature as a factor that can segregate breeding populations.   So, despite the overwhelming majority of bees in Wisconsin being managed, mite-susceptible stock, there do appear to be mechanisms (in additional for simple natural selection) for feral bees to remain genetically distinct.   

Joe

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Martin W. <mewhit...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 7:37 PM

To: madbees
Subject: Re: [madbees] Re: preserving the drones

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[James]

Lotta pseudo-science going on here folks.  Until you have genetic markers for specific bee lines that you are tracking, and a PCR in your kitchen, everything on here is speculative.  And until you have a radiactive labeled varoa mite, don't speculate on the source of your infestation.  

And why do you assume that ferals are the bees robbing out weak hives?  I've often wondered on the origin of robbers, but without tracers, who knows?

And small cell bees can go up to 5.1 mm, but packages can start at 5.2.  Is that 1/10th of of mm statiscally significant.  Are your measuring devices precise to that level?

And as much as people like to quote Randy Oliver's peices as "science"  they're not peered reviewed science, and they're not statistically significant.  Cherry picking data might be more accurate.  

Don't over-think mite control, and don't divert resources and time toward that cause.  Be a beekeeper, and not a mite exterminator.

[Matthew Hennek]

James: commenting only on your question on whether one can precisely measure the difference between 5.1 and 5.2mm. Any decent quality set of calipers can measure down to 0.01mm intervals. Now a better instrument to use would be something like a non-contact micro-vu, but knowing a little about Joe's background I have no doubts when he says there's a difference.

Whether 5.1 and 5.2mm has any meaningful difference to the bees is a whole nother' bag-o-worms.

And just because something is peer reviewed doesn't nessesary make it good science. Having spent over a decade in the academic realm reading/writing/editing scientific articles I can personally attest to that. There is some great research and some really crap research that makes it through the process.

As far as randy Oliver's work not being statistically significant, what confidence interval are you assuming he must have?

[Joseph Bessetti]

Small cell is 4.9 mm and smaller. 

When you measure cell size you should measure a minimum of 10 cells and calculate the average.  If you can tell the difference between 51 and 52 mm on a simple plastic ruler then you can measure a 1/10 mm difference in (average) cell size.  The only hard part about it for me is holding the ruler still while I count.

Being a beekeeper, not a mite exterminator is exactly my focus.   We've gotten off track on this thread, which was originally about mite trapping using drone comb and speculating about letting the drones emerge and then treating them to kill the mites (extermination--I didn't notice criticism then). 

I've often viewed drone trapping as an organic method for knocking down the mite population, but I've avoided doing it myself because inserting and removing drone combs on a schedule just seems tedious.  So I watch my hives make drone comb and raise drones and I cringe thinking of all the mites they're breeding.  Strangely though, some of my hives that have the most drone comb and raise the most drones seem to be the strongest ones... (mere observational, not enough for a statistical analysis or meaningful conclusion, let alone a peer-reviewed publication, but something I'm taking note of personally for future reference).  Instead, the hives I seem to have mite problems with are the ones that aren't fully regressed and still have a few large cell combs in them.)  Anyway, I'm starting to think of drones and drone comb a little differently now, at least in the context of small cell colonies (4.9 mm and smaller worker brood comb). 

Joe

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of James <hendri...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 11:35 PM

[Greg V]

I think the family health and vigor come first.
The healthy, proportional drone generation level comes second (as an indicator of the health and vigor and desire to propagate sexually).

This is different from a poor family case where disproportional drone generation is a part of the death spiral.

Back to the original post...

So then (sorry, Betsy, will use you as an example since you started this... :-)....... )
1)IS artificial propping of drones of unknown origin in a given locality a good idea (Betsy's choice of bees)?                        
........  I think personally - one drone-hive does not matter; two drone-hives do not matter;  hundreds of drone-hives - that maybe pushing it and looks like a "market manipulation" to me

2)Should people tell Betsy to NOT do it because her drones will spoil their precious bees of a some good, super-duper breed?     .
........ I think people should leave Betsy alone and let her do as she wishes (because it really does not matter at this scale - one drone-hive)  
........This is not illegal (big shops do it anyway, as we established);

3)Should local beekeepers control what bee IS/IS NOT allowed in their particular locality?
........Well, then no one can get ANY news bees without first getting explicit permission from already existing local beekeepers - now this is harsh and unreasonable and sounds like mafia anymore

I say let Nature and Economics choose the best way out.
Things should be long-term sustainable economically and environmentally.


On Wednesday, September 28, 2016 at 8:37:00 AM UTC-5, Joe wrote:

.......  Strangely though, some of my hives that have the most drone comb and raise the most drones seem to be the strongest ones...

Joe

[harold steinberg]

I’ve spent over 3 decades in the academic realm and I can second Matthew’s statement below.

[BETSY TRUE]

I want to clarify what I'm proposing:

Taking drone comb from my hives, some of them Italians, some carniolans, some hygienic strain, some dark anyway and just letting them emerge in a nuc that I can specially treat for mites so as not to heavily burden their home hives with mites. I'm sure these are hybridized, but no more than if emerging from their home hives. I was responding to the information that often queens aren't well mated due to poorly nourished drones or pesticide affected drones as the video and other news reports have stated. I'm thinking it would help to have more healthy drones in the air. 

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[Joseph Bessetti]

I think what you're proposing makes sense if it's practical for you to do.  

You should treat them with formic or other method that works in capped brood before any of them emerge; any substantial number emerging before they're treated undermines your effort.  I think you want to do it in a queen-right hive, but I wouldn't want to treat that whole hive repeatedly the whole season.  Perhaps a cloake-board or other means of temporarily segregating the drone combs from the rest of the hive during the treatment could work.  Separate them to treat, then recombine them after.  Two boxes with a queen excluder and cloake board that can be inserted between them would work; you'll need both upper and lower entrances of course. 

You're already taking the time to do the drone trapping.  I don't see maintaining an additional small hive for this purpose as a huge added burden.

Regards,

Joe

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of BETSY TRUE <bt...@wisc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2016 9:22 AM
To: mad...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [madbees] Re: preserving the drones

[Joseph Bessetti]

If you use a white board or piece of corrugated plastic as your divider you can also see/count the dead mites resulting from your treatment.  

---

From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Joseph Bessetti <jbes...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2016 9:39 AM

[Paul Zelenski]

Interestingly, the bee inspector was talking about a proposal for non-local Beekeepers to need permission from local Beekeepers to bring their bees into Wisconsin. Apparently there are a lot of out-of-state Beekeepers bringing in bees without any inspections or permission. Sounds like the politics of beekeeping isnt getting any easier. 

[Greg V]

On large scale - a good idea.
Anyone remember that large pig yard by Iowa owners they want to build in Bayfield county (of all places)?
Now - that should be stopped.
Unsure of the latest status. I hope the local effort to stop that was successful.

The same with the bees - we don't need large bee "feed lots" coming out of state here to use the nice WI bee pastures and hurting little WI beeks along the way.

Hive by hive - not worth it and not practical.
Live the little guys alone I feel.

[Drew]

You certainly can I believe they're referred to as drone holding colonies. They're used in breeding yards one benefit is it lessens the mite load on your main hives but also increase the amount of dca bees with bees specific genetic traits you might prefer or want to go on to raise mated queens from. There's lots of information on holding colonies but I think there's two really important things to consider before putting it into practice:

Do your bees exhibit characteristics worthy of actively trying to pass on to subsequent generations? ( A dca is 10-15k drones and a drone frame filled is 2-3k cells; I don't know, but just 5 drone frames in a holding colony could have a considerable impact on the genetic diversity for all beekeepers in the area.)
Have your colonies raised healthy drones? ( Consider the colony and your hive management practices. Does formic acid or other mite treatments used effect drone sterility?)

I only looked into drone holding colonies since you asked this question this article goes in to more detail about them and setting one up. For every frame of drone seems like you need a frame of worker brood with the bees on the frame and pollen and honey, a virgin queen and be actively feeding. Like Jeanne said it starts looking like a regular hive pretty quick.

Video clip talking about diversity and drone holding colonies/drone sturation https://youtu.be/9_iFNV5Y-mw?t=48m56s

On Monday, September 26, 2016 at 4:39:30 PM UTC-6, Betsy True wrote:

I enjoyed one of the instructional videos on bee heredity and am reconsidering my practice of drone trapping of mites. I’m wondering if one can remove capped drone comb and allow it to emerge in a special nuc that you treat right away with formic acid strips. How could this work to maintain one’s DCA for the good of the local queen and not breed mites willy nilly. What else would I need in that drone nuc?

I’m thinking of maintaining this nuc all summer to accept drone comb as needed to remove the mites from the regular hives.

[Greg V]

Did you see this on Dave Cushman site?
Source: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/droneraise.html

"Health and viability of drones... Varroa treatment using Formic Acid renders the drones dry and impotent. Thymol effects drone survival and viability in the same way as formic acid, but I do not know the detailed figures. Varroa infestation and Apistan treatment both affect drones. Colonies intended to provide drones for insemination should be treated the previous year so that the reared drones are not affected by fluvalinate or any other residues."

If any of this is true, then this entire drone project does not matter.
All questions to Dave Cushman; he is an expert I guess.

On Monday, September 26, 2016 at 5:39:30 PM UTC-5, Betsy True wrote:

..........you treat right away with formic acid strips.

[James]

I'm a researcher as well, including working in insect systems.  And as a scientist, I find beekeeping to be the LEAST scientific thing I've ever encountered.  That's partly why it's so fun.  But folks should be reminded that a lot of what you do in practice is following what are essentially wives tales, and not peer reviewed science.  They are ideas developed locally, often not replicated with a statistically significant approach. The hurdles in bee research are many.  Lack of funding, inability to replicate the environment, uncontrollable genetics (i.e., the lack of a white mouse equivalent)...It's a really bad experimental system.  But peer review, and more importantly, outside replication of experiments, will be the heart of making real progress.  Everything else is just messing around.  If what you do works for you fine.  But it ain't science until it goes through the scientific method.

[Joseph Bessetti]

Well that really throws a wrench into the works!  

In the end, if the colonies require mite treatment/management in order to survive, then their only real value is for mating queens reared in mite treatment-dependent apiaries.  But if treating them to kill the mites reduces their fertility and thus reduces the quality of the queen they mate with, then treating them and letting them fly would actually be a disservice to other local beekeepers who are raising queens.  Of course, not treating them for mites negates the point of removing them from the colony in the first place, since the mites will spread to other hives.

Now, if the hives were mite-resistant, then producing lots of drones for the local DCAs could be done without raising a bumper crop of mites at the same time.  Plus, the drones would benefit all colonies nearby, not just the mite-dependent apiaries raising queens.  But then if the colonies were all mite resistant, there'd be no point in doing the drone trapping anyway.

It's like a really good card in the game Cards Against Humanity:   The card, "mite resistant colonies" wins nearly every time!

(Just having a bit of fun)

Joe

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From: mad...@googlegroups.com <mad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Greg V <voro...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2016 8:33 AM
To: madbees
Subject: [madbees] Re: preserving the drones

 

[Matthew Hennek]

This might be the paper Dave Cushman is referencing to:

https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/64133000/PDFFiles/301-400/367-DeGuzman--Varroa%20in%20the%20Mating%20Yard%203.pdf

Even this study coming from the USDA fails on many fronts when it comes to adhering to the scientific method.  Their sample size was tiny (5 hives for control, 5 for treat) and this alone raises HUGE red flags. Their details in their materials and methods section is greatly lacking (i.e. where was the drone comb inserted or other factors that could influence their study).

But there may be things we can learn from it.  All of the untreated drones emerged on Day 1, while in formic acid treated hives it took almost 3 weeks for the drones to emerge.  This could be cause by the Formic acid exposure as the authors hypothesize, but it also could be due to brood cooling because bees tend to hang out on the outside of the hive during formic acid treatments. In this study the drones were reared above a queen excluder, which further discourages nurse bees from keeping them warm.  A simple study with a broodminder could confirm/disprove this hypothesis.  If true, then one could conclude that any mite treatment that "pushes" the bees out of the hive will reduce drone production and viability. 

  

As a chemist I'm amazed that ANY macro-biology research can be scientific.  I'm not putting down biologists at all, but trying to maintain everything equal and only change 1 factor in a "large" animal/insect/plant study is VERY difficult.  Now doing this in a system as complex as bees just adds another level of difficulty.