SC/Natural Comb - What happened to the ferals?

[MikeGillmore]

I've been browsing through many of the posts on SC and natural comb... I've read through BWranglers site... and I'm convinced to begin the switch to natural comb this coming season and see first hand how it works.

It appears that many are having success with it in controlling V-Mites, and I believe all of the reports are truthful and factual, but there is still one question that keeps nagging me which I hope someone can answer for me.

If these bees that are regressed to sc/natural comb have the ability to control the mites, then why did such a huge percentage of feral hives get wiped out by Varroa - weren't they all on sc/natural comb in their trees, barns, etc ?
What piece of the puzzle am I missing?

[chief]

Good question. I have wondered the same thing for a long time now. I have decided to go to natural comb (foundationless) to cut costs and pick up any varroa advatage it may have.

[sqkcrk]

bourdeaubee and MikeGilmore are asking the exact same question. It almost seems like The Alices Restaurant conspiracy.

[Michael Bush]

Of course, no one knows for sure but my experience would lead me to this:

1) Crashing domestic hives cause hitchhikers which cause much higher levels of Varroa than are caused by reproduction of the Varroa in the hive. Small cell will improve hygenic behavior some, according to the observations of many small cell beekeepers, and it will decrease the rate of Varroa reproduction to a stable amount (due to several factors including shorter capping and post capping times), but this does not stop thousands of hitchhiker mites on bees that are robbing crashing domestic hives. Ask the almond pollenators if you get any mites from outside the hive.

2) Most of the Feral colonies have always been recent escapees which will build smaller, but not small enough, comb to handle the reproduction of the Varroa. Some have been feral for a long time, but most up until the time of the Varroa epidemic, were recent escapees. I see a lot less of these recent escapees now because they usually don't survive for more than a year or two. When I started beekeeping all of the ferals I saw were somwhere between dark leather colored and yellow Italians. Now many are black and small. The recent escapees are only building about 5.1mm or larger comb. New escapees that used to survive, and replentish the supply of feral bees, are now dying so the population of feral hives is not getting replenished from domestic hives at the rate it used to.

3) A lot of the ferals died in the first wave of the Tracheal mites or other problems and virtues etc. That was before Varroa.

4) The feral bee had never had to deal with Varroa mite pressure at all. The bees without the right traits (hygiene, immune system etc.) died.

5) In my observation, the feral bees are no longer dying out and the ones surviving now are not the same genetics as the ones that used to be out there and these are making a come back.

[Kieck]

I think most of the factors mentioned by Michael can explain the recent decline in numbers of feral colonies. Like Jim Fischer pointed out on the other, similar thread, if the remaining feral bees really can tolerate Varroa, these survivors should repopulate the total feral population. We should see more colonies in coming years if small cell or any other traits of the remaining ferals really do help against Varroa.

The problem I see with Michael's reasons lie in numbers 4) and 5). "The bees without the right traits. . . died," implies that something other than small cell is responsible for these ferals' tolerance of Varroa. Again, in 5), the implication is that the ferals have a genetic resistance to Varroa, rather than small cells reducing Varroa loads. If that's the case, maybe the tolerance of Varroa in the ferals has nothing to do with small cells and everything to do with genetics.

Has anyone tried "progressing" (I guess that's an opposite of "regressing," in a way) captured feral colonies onto commercial-sized comb to see if they maintain their resistance to Varroa? If they do, I would suppose that some other trait provides their resistance or tolerance to Varroa.

[drobbins]

"Has anyone tried "progressing" (I guess that's an opposite of "regressing," in a way)"

BWrangler has

http://bwrangler.atspace.com/bee/sunr.htm

read all his stuff
good info
he comes to some different conclusions about some of this small cell stuff
he's clearly looked at it very closely

Dave

[MikeGillmore]

Thank you Michael. Good answers, and more to ponder. We may never know the answer but your explainations are logical.

Kieck, check the site below and scroll down to "The Mythical Bee" and you will find that he did exactly that - "progressed" mite tolerant bees off of natural cell over to larger cell and they could no longer tolerate the mites, and this included many different commercial strains of bees.

http://bwrangler.atspace.com/bee/smus.htm

[MikeGillmore]

I found the other similar post by bourdeaubee. Sorry for the repetition. It's a good discussion.

[Michael Bush]

>The problem I see with Michael's reasons lie in numbers 4) and 5). "The bees without the right traits. . . died," implies that something other than small cell is responsible for these ferals' tolerance of Varroa.

But it wasn't just Varroa. It's also viruses carried by the varroa. If a feral hive has small cell and is not a Varroa breeding farm, like a domestic large cell hive, they still have to deal with some Varroa coming in from robbers and they still get pierced and exposed to viruses that they have never had before. It's still quite possible that these were responisble for some die off of the ferals regardless of the small cell keeping the population of Varroa constant.

> Again, in 5), the implication is that the ferals have a genetic resistance to Varroa, rather than small cells reducing Varroa loads.

My point is that it may be a combination.

>If that's the case, maybe the tolerance of Varroa in the ferals has nothing to do with small cells and everything to do with genetics.

I don't think so. The studies on AHB put comparing small and large cell would seem to indicate it is the size of the cell.

http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2..._full_text.htm

>Has anyone tried "progressing" (I guess that's an opposite of "regressing," in a way) captured feral colonies onto commercial-sized comb to see if they maintain their resistance to Varroa? If they do, I would suppose that some other trait provides their resistance or tolerance to Varroa.

See the above study.