To treat or not for varroa

Went to a talk last night by Mike Brown of the national bee unit- very interesting, very knowledgeable guy. The question of varroa-resistant bee trials in France was raised, and his take on it was that yes, they have colonies surviving for over 10 years, but that thay have become swarmy, aggressive and unproductive in the process (INRA reports crops 1.7 times higher in treated control hives). This may be a start towards useable strains, but the circle still has to be squared as regards improving the normal desireable traits without losing the resistance.

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It's fair to say that there can be a reduction in yield, but that is only a reduction . If profit is important then this isn't the way to go.

The "swarmy" bit isn't true so I don't know where they got that from, sounds like a bit of added spice, my bees generally swarm just the once in April/May.

Equally the aggressive bit isn't true, some can be, others aren't - plus good days / bad days just like treated bees.

Colony failure for me when it occurs is Queen related when the bees are left alone as would be expected, V.Q's failing to mate successfully or running out of fertility during the autumn/winter period.

Chris

Chris Luck said:

Colony failure for me when it occurs is Queen related when the bees are left alone as would be expected, V.Q's failing to mate successfully or running out of fertility during the autumn/winter period.

Chris

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Another aspect of his talk was on DWV. Turns out to have a huge impact on a number of aspects, including size and duration of queens. Fair to suppose that there is a fairly direct correlation between mite load and DWV load, so the level of infestation they will tolerate could decide the quality of the queens- all part of the selection I suppose.

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Again interesting because I almost never see DWV in my bees.

I did have one colony that used to manifest it every year early in the season but this year it didn't and I had a zero showing across all hives of DWV...all as you know untreated.

VQ's failing to mate or return successfully is generally rated with a failure of between 10 and 20%, therefore a colony should fail in summer following swarming "on average" about every 6 or 7 years which is what happens for me. Queens running out of good sperm from Autumn until April simply happens, again about every 4 or 5 years.

None of this is odd, it's natural and if it didn't happen we would be buried in bees, which I am at the moment and looking to get rid of some except that here they are almost impossible to sell even for the cost of the hive they are in.

I should add that I often yield the same as keepers with treated colonies but this can never be considered objective due to all locations being different.

Chris - here on the ground.

chrischris said:

This is more of a seeking of views from other beekeepers regarding treating for varroa, having just watched the DVD Queen of the Sun I was interested by a view expressed that we may be doing more harm than good by trying to suppress varroa levels, it was suggested that we are not allowing the bees to build up there own natural immunity to varroa and allowing them to reach a stage where they can live with them. What do other beekeepers think, does anyone run hives without treating for varroa, if so do the bees survive.

Regards Chris

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As things stand at the moment I think we have to continue treating our bees here in the UK. However, at Baton Rouge in the USA, a project evaluating queens from the Primorsky region of Russian pacific coast has met with some success and queens bred from this source are now being used in some North American states and in Ontario and Saskatewan in Canada. I believe that varroa resistant bees is the long term solution. We should follow the course set by the Baton Rouge lab. and launch our own project in the UK; after all they have already done a great deal of the work. I can think of only one reason why we do not follow their lead in this, I suppose others can too.
Charlieb.

I can think of only one reason why we do not follow their lead in this, I suppose others can too.

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For clarities sake, what would that be?

Chris

I have only ever used thymol and culled drone brood, and never lost a colony.

Charlieb said:

As things stand at the moment I think we have to continue treating our I believe that varroa resistant bees is the long term solution.

Charlieb.

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have you thought that varroa has faster evolution than bee.

Varroa is now worse than ever. Its side diseases have become worse.

Charlieb said:

As things stand at the moment I think we have to continue treating our bees here in the UK. However, at Baton Rouge in the USA, a project evaluating queens from the Primorsky region of Russian pacific coast has met with some success and queens bred from this source are now being used in some North American states and in Ontario and Saskatewan in Canada. I believe that varroa resistant bees is the long term solution. We should follow the course set by the Baton Rouge lab. and launch our own project in the UK; after all they have already done a great deal of the work. I can think of only one reason why we do not follow their lead in this, I suppose others can too.
Charlieb.

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there are varroa resistant bee breeding in many European countries and they they are making co operation in breeding and testing.

I think that UK has no bee researchers. At least I have not seen resaches. To make anti varroa honey bee is not a retireds' hobby business.
The are 31 other diseases and pests in bees.

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