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something to think about

51K views 163 replies 33 participants last post by  squarepeg 
#1 ·
a concern from pro-treatment beekeepers i have seen a few times on this board was that if you try to be treatment free anywhere near other beekeepers or close to the city limits, you will be spreading disease to other people's beehives and this could end with forcing them to use more treatments than before and worst case scenario their bee colonies will die.

to me this sounds like a kind of unfair disadvantage to rebel beekeepers should someone successfully raise treatment free colonies. it means that even if your bees are treatment free and thriving, people would still want you to spray to prevent spreading bee diseases, meaning your own stock will be weakened and eventually no more resistant than anyone else's. does that sound right?
 
#152 ·
I know why we do it, that's not the point. I was pointing out that selecting for gentleness is no different than selecting for any other trait. We select for traits that benefit us, gentleness being one of them, not because it helps the bees, but because it helps us. Saying that there is something inherently wrong with selecting for specific traits in and of itself is in my opinion misguided. It is quite likely that selecting for more and more gentle bees could be detrimental to the bees. I start to question when I hear we shouldn't be selecting for specific traits, especially when it's followed up by a list of traits to select for.
 
#153 ·
I see what you're saying C, and I agree. The way I'm approaching it, is start with something you like and bring in traits you want. As far as evaluating, unless you're a true breeder with the resources to keep pure lines etc... it comes down to evaluating your hives, and selecting ones you like for production and breeders etc... In the end I think we're all selecting for healthy, productive and gentle bees. Open mating brings interesting problems though for most of us as far as maintaining lines but it's not impossible.
 
#154 ·
I agree that it seems odd to say that you shouldn't select, then list what you should select for. But having heard Mr. Bush speak on this in November, I took away that we should select as few traits as possible so we allow as many traits as possible back into the system. This allows us, rather the bees, the opportunity to survive the next big obstacle.

In reality I think we would be hard pressed to get away without selecting anything.
 
#156 ·
Exceptionally well said! Perhaps you and Michael should collaborate on the book he needs to write....I get frustrated at years of working on this while reamaining viable at the making a living stage. This kind of brief moment of clarity reminds me not to overcomplicate the many many facets - keep it simple. You have the gift of a writer and he the gift of knowledge and soft spoken guidance ... would be a good read on these long winter nights! Thanks
 
#157 ·
Hi, I learned a bunch of what I know from the bee source members and I have followed the treatment free threads and discussed treating with my local mentors and such. I treated once only as a novelty and on a few hives with oxalic vapor just to try it. Other than that I haven’t treated but I made splits and reared queens and I have looked at dead outs under a microscope for indications of nosema and such to make sure there wasn’t a problem which there wasn’t.
I just wanted to say that with my little bit of experience and within the circles of the local beekeepers here that I think that a vast majority of us are doing a good responsible job of keeping bees from what I can tell.


The state inspector spoke at the last meeting of our bee club and I asked her if she had seen much AFB and I think she said only two cases last season which was down from like 70 10 years earlier or something. Some people treat for mites but I think after our former inspector/club president explained that he personally didn’t have much success with treating we all felt less inclined to do it. Unless the counts were very high.


I think this forum is great and I actually get teary eyed when the subject of loving the bees comes up because I really do love my bees. They are part of my internal makeup at this point. I can only imagine that after more time of doing it like many of you that my feeling and love for the bees will only magnify.


This communication on the forum has already bought me to greater understanding of bees but also has given me a better understanding of how to communicate with people through writing on the forum and such. Some of you have mentored me more than others but I consider you all to be very valuable and so that makes me as a newer beekeeper want to be as responsible a beekeeper as possible and surely try to manage my colonies well so that they are not spreading disease.


I can’t say that the awareness of the importance of managing colonies well will make all of the beekeepers that are exposed to it not slip up or have issues that can spread or anything but it has put me on my best behavior and I try to spread the word locally. I really think that the wisdom here has a great impact and it gives me optimism. Thank You all for sharing. It is greatly appreciated.
Brown Organism Pest Insect Invertebrate


Here's a video of my bees on saturday. It was so good to be close to them and see how they were doing. They were psyched to be out It gave me bee fever:)

http://youtu.be/vdaOh8LpKbE
 
#159 ·
>You say we need to breed for healthy, gentle, productive bees. How is breeding for gentle or productive bees any different than breeding for any other trait?

>I agree that it seems odd to say that you shouldn't select, then list what you should select for.

I'm not saying you shouldn't select. I'm saying be careful. First, selection always (by definition) limits the gene pool. Let's not limit it more than necessary. Second, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking some very specific trait is the only one that matters. It is not.

The difference is the same difference between looking at something in a microscope; and standing back and seeing the whole organism. In the case of bees, that is the whole colony. Rather than measuring things in minuet you don't "measure" you look at the overall picture. A booming, healthy, productive, gentle colony is not hard to recognize without measuring anything. I'm saying select for the big picture, not the details. Also, select for what is important. Is it important to you what the mite counts are, or is it important whether they thrive and produce? Is it important to you what color they are, or that they are gentle and healthy? Is it that important that they do or don't open a pin pricked cell or that they are healthy without any treatments? I think we often think something is important when it's not. The combination of things that makes a colony healthy may be beyond our ability to grasp. Combinations of traits work together, and combinational analysis shows that even as few as 16 traits that have two possibilities have 65,536 possible combinations. There are more traits involved than that, it it grows exponentially. But it's not hard for us to measure when they come together well, and breed from those. That's what successful breeding has been doing for thousand of years. Breeding failures always seem to result from bottlenecking the gene pool too much and particularly from breeding for very few very specific traits instead of general health and usefulness. So the other issue is don't needlessly limit the gene pool. Breed from ALL of the good lines in your beeyard, not just the one best. Select OUT the ones that are not up to par but be careful you don't breed out more than you need to.

>I think Mr. Bush was eluding to painting with broad strokes rather than using a fine point pen. Don't get caught up chasing single traits, select for healthy strong colonies and you will end up with a good product.

Exactly.
 
#160 ·
I guess I can say I agree for the most part. You should always be keeping overall fitness in mind which I believe I've mentioned, but I still feel that quantitative analysis of traits is useful information for breeding. Sure you can breed without doing it and make progress, but that does not mean it can't be a useful tool that can potentially speed up the selection process. You can use a handsaw to build bee boxes and do a good job at it. It's still faster to use a table saw, but there's more risk involved, and you need to be safety conscious. There have been plenty of breeders who have used these types of measurements to good effect.

Side Note: Honey Bees are also one of the easiest organisms to add diversity to simply because of their genetics and reproduction.
 
#161 ·
In Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, he has a study on how to determine if a patient is having a heart attack. It turns out there are really only a few things that matter and that the more information doctors gathered in making their decision, the more likely they would make a bad one. He gives many examples of the same concept, that too much information causes us to make worse decisions. What we need to make good decisions is big picture, not all the details. I think the more you measure all those small things the more tempted you will be to limit the gene pool much more than you should, and you will put too much emphasis on things that simply don't matter at all.
 
#163 ·
Again I can agree with the principal, but still have to disagree on completely dismissing a useful tool. There's also such a thing as too little knowledge I'm afraid. How do those doctors know which signs to look for now... because they measured everything to find the ones that make the most difference.

It's a bit of an acedemic debate for me, I do not yet have enough hives that I can really do much in the way of any selection. But the reason we have some lines of bees around is precisely because someone did this type of selection. If you think your bees need a boost in mite resistance you can go buy some VSH bees to mix in with the lot precisely because someone measured a trait to breed for it. Now you can argue that some of these bees are less productive etc, but a lot of people have had great luck then crossing them into their current stock. I could keep trying to breed from the population I have and I can keep watching them die or I can pull in some genetics that will help out.
 
#164 ·
my selection process up to this point has been to do a cut down split on my most robust hives prior to swarm season.

this year, i will look to the most robust hives to graft eggs from, but i will also factor mite counts into the decision, and i'll avoid having all of my stock originating from one or two colonies.

the weaker colonies will be deselected by busting them up into mating nucs.

great discussion here, many thanks to all for posting.
 
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