Empirical Observations: Minnesota Hygenics

[Frank Shinji]

I'm not much of a beekeeper. I love watching them but I'm boxed up in the inner city. I got one observation hive and then another when I figured out I could house them on the second floor of my house and nobody has been the wiser.

I got two Minnesota Hygenic Queens in July to see how they did. All of the info that I had read about them made them seem like an interesting and promising breed to try out.

Before the MH Queens I had a feral colony and a Buckfast colony. They got moved to a friends yard and used as Nuc starters.

Several times I observed the MH's removing pupa, from just developing ones to pupa that were almost hatched. I watched two workers uncap and remove a bee that was probably just hours away from hatching. The bee that was being removed definitely had deformed wings. I didn't see problems with K-Wings in the adult population so... apparently they could tell it was a defective bee. Several times I watched 13-14 day old pupa removed that were white, almost clear, slightly shriveled and from the looks of it already dead.

The colonies have been T-Fogged every two weeks, same as I was doing with the feral and Buckfast. The MH's look strong, starting to cluster because of the season. The MH's are much lighter in color than the Buckfast.

The MH's that I have are more defensive than the feral and Buckfast that I had. I've worked the ferals and the Buckfasts since they were moved to the Nuc's and they are still pretty gentle. The MH's, OTOH, do not like to be disturbed. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being docile and 10 being hazardous I would rate the Buckfast as a 4 and the MH's as a 6.

Each colony is being run on two large frames. Each colony has one HSC and one 1-piece Pierco. Next year I'm putting them on three mediums that are all SC.

These are just my observations, a very small sample, just about meaningless except... the hygenic behavior was very obvious, re: removing diseased or dead pupa, the MH's are good at it. I'm stumped why some of the pupa had very obvious K-Wing and yet the population is vigorous, looks healthy, and I can rarely find a varroa even after watching through a magnifying glass for ten or twenty minutes.

Another observation... the queens stopped laying ten days ago. I hadn't been feeding them since it was still warm and they had plenty of capped honey. Yesterday I gave each hive some 2:1 for winter stores and I gave them the pollen patties I had left (pollen patties made out of real pollen and a little honey). Well, both hives went nuts, they sucked down the syrup as fast as I've ever seen and the pollen patties were gone toot-sweet. And then both queen's starting laying again. I'm not willing to make a causal linkage but it was interesting. I'm going to try it again when the queen's stop laying next time.

Hopefully I'll have some more observations or supporting commentary in a few months...

Frank

[ October 21, 2006, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: Frank Shinji ]

[Mike Gillmore]

Sounds like you got good high quality queens Frank. What you described is excellent hygenic behavior.

I got a couple of Minn Hygenic packages last year and have to say, I was not impressed. The mite population ended up higher with them then my mutts, and the MH 2nd generation this year was terrible.

Keep us posted in the future, I'm interested in how they work for you.

[tecumseh]

I am more that a bit interested in anyone who has had experience with MH, particularly all observation about their disposition. casually I had heard that their disposition was much as frank has suggested.

as a side bar frank, I have recently read where full blown hygenic behavior may be the results of at least 7 genes (in the classical case one gene was thought to be required to recognize the defect and one gene for removal of the diseased or defective brood) coming into play. this would suggest that hygenic behavior will be a bit more difficult to establish than most folks originally thought.

and thanks for your observation...

[Judy Bee]

Some fellow beekeepers and I got MHB's from B&B Honey last spring and most of us found that we got as many or more mites than normal. Some, not all, hives were aggressive, and one hive 'runny'.

We all treated these hives with Apiguard; still, lots of mites. If my hives survive I'll requeen with Purvis Brothers queens. Otherwise I'll be on the 'swarm list' and replace those queens with ones from Purvis Brothers.

That said, I like dealing with the folks at B&B. They are really friendly and timely. Just don't like the MHB queens.

-Judy

[ October 22, 2006, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: Judy Bee ]

[kensfarm]

My first 2 nucs I bought this spring are MH..

Mite Counts.. the MH hives mite counts were way higher then a local Italian nuc I bought/started in July. The MH were started in the beginning of May.. I'll have to admit I hadn't done my powder sugar treatments through the season. I harvested 2+ Med supers off the 2 MH hives for the year.

Behavior.. most aggressive behavior I've seen happens when taking honey off the hive.(I shake the frames.) This Sat. was an example.. 65F.. a little wind.. took the hive from 4 to 3 Med. Supers.. checked for stores/brood in brood area. Also did a powder sugar treatment. Had a dozen + bees bouncing off my veil.. and I had smoked them good before starting the hive manipulations.

My garden helper was out of the woods from hunting.. and walked down to hives.. I yelled don't come down here.. the bee's are pissed.(I've shown him around the hives before.. normaly you can walk around the hives any time, no protection, and stand right by the hives) He was in a white T-Shirt.. he came closer 20-25 yards and a couple bee's were on him. He made record time running back to the barn and was able to pull his shirt off in full stride.

I do hive checks w/out smoke and usually only a couple bee's are bouncing off my veil. I've also seen them calm as kittens w/ no aggression or interest in me at all when checking the hive.

Frank I love watching them too.. and visit almost every evening when I get home.

[John F]

<tecumseh>
I am more that a bit interested in anyone who has had experience with MH, particularly all observation about their disposition.This was my first year. My association's package purchase was MH so I naturally decided MH was the breed for me. smile.gif

I bought 1 package and installed it into a topbar hive. I have been stung twice: once when I grabbed a topbar and pressed a bee and once as a victim of head butting. (Yeah, I wasn't wearing a veil.)

I am very nosey and would often rummage around in the hive to see what they were doing. I have split the hive a couple of times and have 2 second gen. MH queens that are awesome. (I didn't know that the mother queen was lousy until I did a split.)

If I am doing a quicky hive encounter, like removing a push in cage (Oh yeah, I also have a hive with a queen I bought), or checking on feeding, then I don't smoke or wear any protective clothing. If I'm going to be pulling combs out I now wear a veil. If I'm going to be shaking bees and in general making a cloud of buzzing bees, I start the smoker.

I can't imagine more docile bees, even the second gen hives let me poke around.

[Mimi's Bees]

I too am very interested in the MH. I observed them in a commercial beeyard and was impressed with their dispositions--very calm. I ordered five nucs of MH for spring 2007, but I have to admit I a little concerned about the high mite count. I have one hive of Italians now and without any treatment have a very low mite count. I don't want to invest all that money on five nucs if the MH aren't any better than Italians.

Mimi's Bees

[tecumseh]

thanks for the observation folks. any additional observation will be equally valued.

[Frank Shinji]

I'm glad to hear other people's observations. A few random things... the MH Queen's are larger compared to the few feral and Buckfast Queen's I have to compare them to. I'll put in a plug in for the carolina beeman Chuck Norton. He was very pleasant to deal with. Even better he was very professional and easy to do business with (he took paypal) and the Queen's were mature, lively and had good laying patterns from the get go.

From what I've read MH's aren't particularly resistant to varroa. My observation hives have done fine with a bi-weekly FGMO/Thymol fogging and nothing else. I have some OA crytals and a home made vaporizer "just in case" but haven't seen a reason to use it. With the observation hives I'll take twenty minutes to sit and try and find varroa. Sometimes I did see one, now I haven't seem one for a few weeks. I've also watched many bee's hatch, observed the initial grooming behavior which is very similar, almost identical, to the grooming done after fogging. I would say that the fogging promotes quite a lot of allo-grooming, and it's interesting to see what is apparently a "dance" that attracts other bee's to come help groom.

From what I gather the MH's are basically just a type of Italian. Natural selection and many of the larger outfits are breeding their own "hygenics" and "SMR's". I think the main advantage for the MH's is resistance to the different foul broods or whatever would kill a pupa before it hatched. Even with my small observation hive THAT behavior was very noticeable and markedly different than the Buckfast or feral. I was fascinated to see the bee's with deformed wings get ejected basically just as they were hatching. No explanation for the deformed wings, that was 6 weeks ago and the colony looks healthy today and no visible DWV.

The Queen has stopped laying. The bee's aren't interested in pollen (real pollen) but will still suck down the syrup. The MH's keep the bottom of the hive very clean. Interesting to hear from Tecumseh that so many genes may be involved in the set of behaviors. The majority of the genes must be recessive but maybe the local mutts/survivors have some of the genes since the mutts that I caught swarming were coming from a survivor hive that first occupied the eves of my friends house 5 years ago. They had varroa and still do have some but they did get fogged with FGMO, no thymol, regularly. The hive that they swarmed from is still very active.

It's great to see bee's in the city of Denver again. In the 1970's I would get stung if I walked barefoot in the park. Starting in the late 90's they seemed to be almost gone, but I still saw a few at the trumpet vine (20 feet tall) on my house. Bee's love that trumpet vine. I noticed three years ago that the bee's were back in some numbers.

The swarm from the survivor colony was huge, maybe six or seven lbs. They've filled out two larges for their brood nest and made about a medium and a half of honey they didn't get to keep in their first season.

I was going to requeen just "because I'm supposed to" but I decided to try and split them in spring before they swarm and keep the local queen. If I don't catch them then there's another hive of bee's out there that might survive and we need them. If I get a good split then I'll have, hopefully, two nice local colonies. The "out" hives also being in metropolitan Denver the Buckfast and the MH's are going to mate with whatever locals there are anyways. A few drones from my hives can't make a difference but if a majority of beekeepers start using bee's with these genetics then my bee's could then be a small part of a larger project.

As a hobby beekeeper I see reasons but no compelling reason to requeen every year. I've heard it's possible to get a good three years out of a queen. I'm not trying for as much honey as I can get, in fact just one and a half mediums is more than enough for this year when I wasn't expecting any. I suspect if I had to deal with anything more than six mediums of honey every year I would start getting rid of hives.

More power to the folks that want to harvest a ton of honey and sell at the local farmers market and such. My interest in bee's came directly from seeing an observation hive when I was eight. The hive was sitting next to some "comb honey" in the little square wooden frames that I haven't seen for decades. My parents got some of that comb honey and that was it, I was hooked, apparently for life.

So observation hives at home and a couple hives twenty blocks away is fine. I suppose if I lived in a rural area I would be tempted to have more hives but I still wouldn't want to have deal with all that honey.

Now anytime someone comes and visits I show them the observation hive which is invariably a big hit and give away some honey. I also explain how easy it is to keep bees and all the advantages to having a hive in the garden. Still plenty of room and need for bee's in the city, not just in the rural area's, and you don't need a big yard in the suburbs to maintain a hive or two.

Oh, but from the temperment of my MH's, I wouldn't recommend them for a beginner. Now, they are just fine when they're out going about their business but they are very defensive when I go in the hive. Yes I use smoke and don't kick the hive and such. They will keep tracking me and try to sting for a good while after I've taken the hive outside for maintenance. Once I've lost the guards and have the hive back inside they forgive me and go back to their business.

The entry for the observation hive goes to the backyard directly above the back door and no one has been stung even with the yard full of bee's, most of my plants are the kind bees like. I've found that the MH's are good for the observation hives because they are generally very easy to tell apart from the local population, they are a much lighter color with reddish legs. It's evident that when the bee's are working the trumpet vine, probably 200+ bee's in a small area, "other" bee's make up 70% or more of the foragers. Praise the Lord! My wife who initially approved of the observation hive was getting nervous with all the bees buzzing in the backyard. When I switched to the MH's and six weeks had passed I could point out quite clearly and graphically that most of the bees in the yard were not ours! With the MH's so easy to identify it's also easy to observe robber's coming in, or trying to. There are definitely some tricky ones that will feed the guards a little and then slip into the hive. It's given me some idea of just how many bees from other colonies are slipping in, and the number is significant if you're looking at it as a varroa vector. When the bees were still going full tilt in August I could see an interloper in the hive most of the time during daylight hours. I believe you could just start out with five or ten varroa and a defenseless hive and the hive would crash within three years. I'm sure the number of outsider bee's getting in is significant enough to make it certain that any hive will eventually get varroa unless they are totally isolated.

So the MH's turned out to be a really good bee for observation. Just dumb luck that they are easy to distinguish from the local Denver bee's. After seeing the co-mingling of the two separate observation colonies and then the sneaky robbers I think it's obvious that there is no solution (not incl. MB) to the varroa plague that anyone can implement that's going to work. The only solution that's going to work is one that has a huge participation from the beekeeping community, from guys with 50,000 hive to the person that is a sideliner or hobbiest or even some no one like me who spends his time managing some observation hives in the middle of a big city. Of course maybe I'm wrong, wouldn't be the first time, but I am wondering how to take an approach that can be implemented and will affect a good plurality of the domesticated bee gene pool. Oh, and I'm assuming that the answer is in part or whole going to be a matter of what bee's can already do, something in their genetics. There again is where something like the MH's, or the Lusby, or the Weaver Bee that is varroa tolerant or whatever is a SMR or Hygenic bee that's been developed.

I don't think the answer is in "hygenics". The little bastard varroa, once in the hive, could almost scuttle from larvae to larvae and only use parasitism on mature bee's to hitch rides to new wide open pastures. They're gonna be selected, negatively, by our positives in the selections for the bees. The bee's that are bred to be varroa tolerant will carry varroa that in some part will almost surely have been selected by us as a by product of the bee selection. That's not to say that varroa will magically appear at the instant that bee is born. But that varroa will be naturally selected in a way determined by the characteristics we picked for our new varroa tolerant bee.

Hygenics, combined with bee's that cap and hatch earlier, which can be done through genetics or small-cell or both are promising. I suppose it is hard to track, down to the hour, when an egg is laid, capped and hatched. Then you would have to breed from the Queen's that produced shorter capping and hatching time. Might as well start with a good hygenic strain and keep selecting from that also. I'm certainly "sold" on small cell insofar as it gets the bee out of the cell earlier (it does) and 4.85mm should be reducing the varroa reproduction rate by 50%.

I don't know if this has been mentioned before but maybe the survivor colonies are the ones with genetically determined shorter capping and hatching times? Just dumb luck, like being blond or brunette, short or tall. There is some controversy over what an average cell size is in the wild (not getting into it), but even if the size averaged out to 5.0mm bee's that mature faster because of genetics may be the ones that survived. Even a 5.2mm cell gives the bee some help fighting the varroa reproduction.

Oh well, I just realized I've been typing a thesis. Fortunately no one has read this far.

-Frank

[ October 30, 2006, 10:55 AM: Message edited by: Frank Shinji ]

[Aspera]

Frank Wyatt breeds and sells MH queens bred to SMR drones. You might want to also get his opinion. Shorter development times are undoubtably one of the many tricks that AHB's use to resist varroa. My understanding is that the hygienic trait is entirely different from the AHB mechanism(s) of resistance. The hygienic trait could be bred into any outbred strain of bee in less than a decade of selection. Unfortunately it can be lost in as little as a single generation of queen production. This is the first that I've heard of defensive MH's but I'm not surprised. My SMR hybrids can be fiesty and I have often wondered if the Weaver lines of surviver bees might just be AHB that has been extensively intercrossed with Italian bees and selected for rapid brood development.

[ October 30, 2006, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: Aspera ]

[Judy Bee]

Frank,

Interesting that your MHB is light and large. Mine are all dark. The only gentle hive contains a dark, slender queen with lots of brood going into the winter. Fingers crossed that it will survive the winter; I give it a 50-50 chance.

I just returned from the Oregon State Beekeeper's conference (wonderful conference!). I left with my own impression that survival of varroa will depend on the natural selection of bees. We've enhanced varroa by treating with insecticides, and breeding for hygenic bees has ignored other qualities like gentleness, honey production, etc. The last issue of American Bee Journal has a very discouraging report on the once-promised fungal treatment of varroa. (Last year, I left that same conference thinking that the fungus plus the MHB would be the answer.)

One really interesting area of interest will be the results of Diana Sammatoro's current research on varroa's nutritional requirements. Next to nothing is known about this right now. We've been focusing on how to kill mites, with little success, and without understanding everything about the little buggers (that's a euphemism for what I really want to call them). Diana Sammatoro gave a fun talk about mites in general, then stressed that we need to rear mites and look at their life cycle in detail, what they like to eat, what their weaknesses are.

MEANWHILE, I have my eye on a swarm in an apple tree. I told the owner of the tree that I have first dibs on removing the colony should they survive the winter. ;)

-Judy

[ October 30, 2006, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: Judy Bee ]

[Frank Shinji]

Well Judy Bee, I find that interesting, your MHB's are dark. Seems like everything I read about the future of the bee is that is will a small dark bee. And yes, depending on how you look at it, the bee will determine if the varroa survives or the varroa will determine whether the bee survives. It's strange logic but true as anything else we know about this subject. As I metioned above the MHB is just a pedigreed Italian. I'm a little surprised that mine are fairly defensive but they aren't vindictive so I just have to wear the right outfit (full gear). Walk around the block to get rid of the tenacious ones. That gets a good look from the neighbors. Then take the buttoned up hive back inside. I would bet that most MHB's are on the more agreeable side.

Sometimes I muse that everyone is looking at the varroa problem backwards. As Judy metioned above we know very little about the buggering bunged up bullocking destructor buggers. Perhaps the solution is to breed a different varroa.

[ October 30, 2006, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: Frank Shinji ]

[tecumseh]

frank sezs:
I've heard it's possible to get a good three years out of a queen.

tecumseh replies:
years ago we use to think that we could get 5 years plus out of a good queen (long life being a criteria for selection in those day before ahb or varroa). now I suspect your observation is quite correct.

then frank adds:
Fortunately no one has read this far.

tecumseh replies:
well I am still here and still following along frank.

then frank sezs:
Sometimes I muse that everyone is looking at the varroa problem backwards.

tecumseh suggest:
often time true innovation is simply one one organizing something in a new way or looking at something from a very different angle. much like doing trim carpentry which is normally cut upside down and backwards.

ps.... one 'casual' observation that I have made is that my fairly dark italian queens seem to out perform their lighter sisters (and yes some full sisters).

[WG Bee Farm]

Good morning Frank
One important thing to remember about Minn. Hyg. bees are that the Hyg. behavior was not developed for Varroa infestations. The developement of hgy. behavior was to combat Amer. Foulbrood, and other brood diseases. The MH queens will produce bees that give "some" assistance to the control of varroa, but not enough to see noticable difference. The work on Hyg. behavior goes back for 75+ years, with Marla Spivak building on top of others until she was able to determine tha reason Hygenics work and how to make it more effecient in the hive.

If you are looking for Varroa reduction and higher resistance than normal, then you need to search for Queens produced with VSH (varroa senitive hygenics) traits. This is the old SMR that was formally discovered by John Harbo & Jeffrey Harris. Last year Marla Spivak proved that this SMR trait was a specalized hygenic behavior. This behavior allows the bees to locate specific cells that the Varroa mite female is reproducing in. Then the worker uncaps and removes the pupa and the varroa mite female and young. Any cells that has females that are not reproducing are left alone.
It is possible to get MH queens that have been inseminated with VSH drones and to use these breeders to raise open mated queens. I think this is the best available genetics available at this time for higher than normal disease resistance, greater resistance to varroa than normal, greater honey potential, and greater pollen collection. This queen is an Italian and will maintain a larger brood nest.

Sometimes if the open mated queens of the breeders supercede , these supercedure queens can generate a "hot" hive. But, some of the hottest hives I have ever had were Italians. So I don't know it this is specific to the trait or just something that happens, only occassionally.
I have had good success with my queens.
Thanks
Frank Wyatt
WG Bee Farm
Eden, NC

[Focus on Bees]

Hi all, just want to share a few thoughts about MH bees. First, I think that the varroa levels in any colony of bees varies with what time of year, whats happening at different times, how much stress, what the weather has been like, if the bees were bred for resistance or not, etc. Its definatly interesting to read about beeks experience with the different strains. Also, on the topic of how the behavior is, and I can talk from experience, depends on a bunch of things too. Like weather, temp, humidity, sunny, windy, storm front coming in that we can't see. It also depends on what time of the day we work the bees, if we are rushed or not, how much smoke we use, if they have been irritated with us or critters, etc. So you see there are so many factors out there that we are mostly unaware of. Like the mite count. You can read on different posts here that the mite count varies at different times of the year. Too, the way you check for mites is not always that accurate. There are so many things that could be happening that it keeps the learning about the bees so interesting.

[Frank Shinji]

Hey Frank! (Wyatt) (are you a Haute Wyatt?)
Yes, I probably didn't make it clear or just plain didn't say it correctly. Minnesota Hygenic's are not the answer to varroa, just like you said. I just thought that they would be fun to watch and durn if I wasn't right!

Tecumseh:

I love how you can say a whole bunch with only a teeny few words. Yeah, innovation is sometimes what we called a generation ago a "Paradigm Shift".

Everyone is saying it's going to be a buncha things, IPM. Then we're dissapointed when the newest magic bullet doesn't work out (varroa fungus!).

Everyones still gotta do what they gotta do and I'm glad that people will tell others including me what they're doing so that I can have a better chance of doing what I gotta do in a hopefully better way.

Frank