John Kefuss: Nice story, not new but still a wonderful read

[fatscher]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...Q5vaMAtZqV92Nw

[Ted Kretschmann]

Fatscher, you do not have time to bee reading books. Bees look good, winter is over. Red maple,Tag Alder, Dandelion, and Henbit is blooming and it will not be long till we start nuking the bees. Not with Plutonium mind you. Stores held up GOOD this year, with most colonies having enough still left for up to 4 more months of winter. I am in the process of putting TM on the bees now. Gotta go the hired help will be here in a few minutes. When the you put the book down,call or write, you are more than welcome to spend a day or two here. Might be able to teach you something that aint in that book.TK Experience is the best teacher.......

[Eek-a-beek]

The article is not all that long but if the time burden is too much right now then the gist is that you can breed for varroa resistance yourself. The recommended procedure is in the following passage:

"As a variable example, he set out a procedure for the selection of up to 20 breeder queens from an apiary of 500:
1) From the initial group of hives, select the 100 best producing colonies.
2) On those, perform 24-hour hygienic tests. (Kefuss carries squares of worker brood cells already frozen to insert immediately as he cuts, saving a trip.
3) Of those, select the most hygienic 40 for Varroa count. Tabulate all adult, daughters and immature Varroa in the cells to give a present and future evaluation.
4) Spread this breeding material by rearing daughters and requeening in all bee yards to produce selected drones.
5) Leave the best 20 of the selected hives without treatment – the Bond test – to produce breeder queens."

[Ted Kretschmann]

Eek, we bred a bee that was varroa resistant and was recognized as such by the Baton Rouge bee lab. The problem is that when you inbreed a lineage for one thing, like we did for mite resistance, you loose something else important, like honey production. Well, we had bees that were resistant to mites. They overwintered in small clusters BUT they never became the boomers that you need for commercial honey production. So after we were done submitting samples to Baton Rouge at the end of the testing, we promptly outcrossed the bees. That bloodline is still in the bees that we have. Lawrence Cutts of Florida will tell you to find a bee that produces honey and makes you a living. JUST spend the money on the proper LEGAL treatments and treat your bees. If I, a commercial beek can do this, I know that Hobbyist should be more than able too also. TK PS Fatscher and I are friends and live in the same state that wants to be its own country based on its ancient laws--ALABAMA

[fatscher]

...you do not have time to bee reading books. Bees look good, winter is over. Red maple,Tag Alder, Dandelion, and Henbit is blooming...

...When you put the book down, call or write, you are more than welcome to spend a day or two here. Might be able to teach you something that aint in that book.TK Experience is the best teacher.......

Ted, first of all, you will always teach me something...

secondly, man, you are in my head, because this is exactly what I've been saying to myself... "get to work!" I'm used to Virginia beekeeping...this Alabama beekeeping is a new ballgame...I am woefully unprepared for the on-slaught of apis mellifera about to burst forth in the heart of dixie. My Virginia buddies are not faring so well, lots of losses being seen.

[Ted Kretschmann]

How bad are the losses in Virginia??? TK