From: "deelusbybeekeeper" <deelusbybeekeeper@excelonline.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 09:53:16 -0800
Subject: Re: girls on small cells, regressing bees



Hi to all on Biological Beekeeping at egroups

Dave wrote:

> I have to dissagree on nature breeding as a "whole bee" it is in fact minor
> changes over many generations that enable survivership.

Reply:

Explain your reasoning here vs your breeding. I use the term in what I am
looking at and breeding.Let's go behind the term and look at what we are
both actually doing to see if it is a play on words.

> My queen rearing cannot be achieved without the feeding of honey and pollen
> (which I trap from fullsize colonies). In our local conditions, deliberate
> queen and drone raising has to be concentrated early and late in the season
> to avoid the italianised drones (which prefer the warmer weather).

Reply:

We feed liquid warmed honey in our starter/finishers, but use whole frames
of pollen next to the brood with the next one full honey, the next for a
place to put the warmed liquid honey fed. We also concentrate early and late
in the season to take advantage of the upswing and downswing of the first
and last breeder cycles for drones of our black bees before the yellower
ones are either out much or few are left. Please see:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/apiacta1995.htm There is also an
open-mating breeding chart on thermodynamic temperture cutoffs relative to
bees there and a sample of sorting out breeder curves on Fig 2 Tucson
Arizona Queen Rearing Cycles.

>From what you say above then this would be similar to what you are doing?
>
> Perhaps my techniques are not "Fully Biological" by your criteria. Only when
> I have a large enough pool of genetic material that has significant, proven
> survivability, will I feel justified in withdrawing all of the "crutches"
> that you mention.
>
> I have regularly outcrossed my bees.

Reply:

Dave, our criteria is simple. We feed honey and pollen. We outbreed, not
inbreed. We use a small natural cell size within the spectrum of natural
cell sizes near the top, knowing the bees will make smaller with age, so no
need for going smaller as that will automatically come now if the bees want
it.We treat nothing with chemicals HARD or SOFT which includes all the acids
and essential oils and no artificial antibiotics. We would recommend natural
propolis though mixed with honey.

We will gladly help people come off of chemicals with their colonies to
include decontamination of combs etc, but we will NOT tell people how to use
or put into a hive chemicals/drugs of any type.

If you regularly outcross your bees, then why do you give advice i.e. to
John as to inbreeding, if it is something you yourself do not do and maybe
do not believe in then?

> I am not trying to "save" a particular bee but merely select those
> components of its nature that have good historical documentation.

Reply:

I went back to early written archives from many sources as traits for bees
have changed dramatically since the late 1880s and early 1900s to see how
they were described and what to look for in our bees here. Also to use the
early descriptions as a guide to select from what stocks we had, bees to use
for breeding, and to throw those characteristics forward with drones and
then queens, to get away from todays' problems. Again we are not sounding so
far away in mind now from what we are actually doing.

> I am strongly in favour of 4.9 mm cells as I believe that was the norm
> around 1880.

Reply:

Good this reinforces what information we found in the archives then.

> but I will not risk undoing what I have so far achieved just because I have
> not yet got a bee that can totally survive the onslaught of pests and
> diseases unaided.

Reply:

If you are changing your nucs to 4.9 this year like you say, this problem
will dramatically change with your bees making the conversion to get them
more into balance with natural flora and consequently a whole full food
source for health. You will see it will also change your selection pressure
for what you have, also throwing the mating advantage to the small blacks
you want so much by vertue of your latitude and climatic area.

> > Why do you like saving fragments, especially unrecognized ones? You sound
> > like a person that likes to save everything, in case you may need it
> > someday.
>
> That is the right! In case I may need it someday.

Reply:

Well, Dave, while we believe in letting weak bees die if they will not come
round or merge them into stronger colonies to absorbe up for numbers, we do
save and ratpack everything else and try to repair it forever. So we do not
seem so far off here either.

> We must maintain the genetic diversity to enable
> selection...wether this selection is "manual" or "automatic" makes little
> difference if a gene has been "lost" it cannot help in any future
> re-selection.

Reply:

I fully agree here Dave, However I will not select a colony for use by odd
bits and pieces of character that could be useful. It is too hard to use. It
is easier to select a colony with all whole bee concepts and go forward from
there.

Question: Since one cannot physically SEE A GENE, then what actually are
you looking at in physical/behaviour attributes for selection? Certainly
again, you cannot be doing much different from me in view of what we have
already discussed. Another play on words

> I am merely trying to re-assemble a bee type that has become diluted over a
> period of a century or so. This should not be considered meddling with
> nature. Indeed I seek to correct much meddling that has occurred in the
> past.

Reply:

So are we, so we are in agreement here to. Do you use an incubator?

> I have to pursue what I think I can make work, I do not have time or
> resources to follow several different avenues at once.

Reply:

Same with us. Chemicals are expensive and all say you have to wait until the
biological way is found, like chemical usage is a holding pattern they want
you to go in. But then no one wants you to come out of it. And with chemical
dependency, then one cannot come out anyway, without much pain in
decontamination, so why go in, in the first place? So we decided to lose our
money to our bee equipment and bees going biologically from the start. At
least what we had then would be clean for resale. But we are still here
after a long fight feeling our way through the problem, and now our outfit
is growing back.

> I consider my methods to be more biologically friendly than most in the UK
> but I do not subscribe fully to you high ideals. I do not think it would be
> healthy for all of us to have identical goals and opinions. The differences
> between us are very small, we are both pulling in the same general
> direction.

Reply:

Good, as long as we are not pulling apart. I am glad you are at the
forefront of biologically friendly husbandry of bees in the UK. But, if you
are truly on this path then please try not to recommend practices to others,
you yourself do not do yourself,.with your bees to survive, like inbreeding.

I feel if we cannot do it ourselves then I cannot recommend nor show others
how. Somehow this is morally wrong at least in our minds.

Best regards to you,

Dee A. Lusby
Tucson, Arizona, USA