Help!!! I want to start breeding for vsh in jamaica to save my country

[Duhaje Jennings]

I have been researching VSH bees and i think this will greatly assist Jamaica's apiculture. We are not allowed to import bees into the Island so many beekeepers turn to hard chemicals that just get more expensive and less effective over time. I would like to start assessing for VSH. I have already started breeding for hygenic bees by freeze method. i see that the VSH is a bit more tricky than just the normal hygenic. Please assist. please give whatever feedback or ideas you have. Anything will be something. Thank you very much

[Jeanette]

The Asian honey bee (Apis Cerana) naturally has the behaviour trait Varroa Sensitive Hygeine. There is a reasonable amount of research being done into selecting European honey bees (Apis Melifera) with this trait. What type of bees do you have?

Here are some online resources into selecting bees with VSH:

Summary: http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/vsh.html#anchor417460
Details: http://www.extension.org/pages/30984...sitive-hygiene
Scientific article: http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/catalog/32517 (PDF download link on page for full document)

[KQ6AR]

You might also want to read some of Marla Spivak's work. Here is just one example.
http://www.beelab.umn.edu/prod/group...set_317501.pdf

[Duhaje Jennings]

Thank you very much. I have seen these articles before. Wanted to know if anyone had more information that would make the process easier. For now I will go for the easier methods until i can get a microscope.

[Oldtimer]

To breed for genuine VSH is an incredibly time consuming process. You are correct that general hygeine, is different to varroa sensitive hygeine. General hygeine is pretty easy to find and select for, just freeze some brood and see how fast they clean it.

But varroa sensitive hygeine is more complex. In my country the method used is to uncap 400 brood cells and examine the contents. If the mite has been allowed to breeed undisturbed, there will be a normal mite family in the cell. But if the bees uncapped the cell, letting the mite out which interupted her breeding cycle, and then re- capped the cell, the cell will contain mite feaces and a male egg or larva. But no adult mite. So if 80% of the infested cells have a normal mite family, and 20% have an interupted family where breeding has been interupted, the bees are classed as 20% VSH.

By selected the best and crossing them using II, our researchers have been able to get as high as 80% VSH, and at this level a hive can go for a long time without treatment. However they have not been able to fix the trait. So for example, a queen from an 80% VSH mother could be crossed with an 80% VSH drone, but the progeny will not all be 80% VSH they can be quite variable. So it is thought that there is not one single gene responsable for VSH, but a combination.

VSH is not the only way bees resist mites, at the start of the program several others were identified. However it was considered too complex to try to shoot for all of them at once, they decided VSH would be the easiest to measure and achieve, so they went for that first.

Hope that is helpful but as you can see, achieving genuine VSH is far from easy. It is not being done by some guys with 1/2 dozen hives in the back yard. The ones of those who are successful have actually been lucky to get bees that have already had work done by competent bee breeders, even though they will often attribute their success to themselves but they are mistaken.

[Duhaje Jennings]

Yes Oldtimer. You are right. I wish there was a way to import already worked on bee stock. I am wondering if there is a way I could legally import drone sperm, use AI to produce queens from best of present stock and then inbreed to introduce the genes. I'm rocking my brain. The good thing about my country is that it is an Island so if enough queens are produced fromm different lines the trait could be present everywhere. Then these queens would be able to open mate and the industry would look up. I have observed purple eyed pupae and I will, in the meantime try a little experimenting. I will post pictures of my progress on this thread and I would like the support of any and everyone.