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VSH Breeding?

68K views 169 replies 34 participants last post by  adamf 
#1 ·
I've noticed the number of threads with VSH in the title, so I thought I would ask this question, as I've been wondering about this for a while.

I've read the postings over on the VSH Breeders website/forum, and I can't tell if (outside the formal USDA program) anyone is actually testing for VSH.

We know that HYG and VSH will not persist in the population unless they are constantly selected for generation after generation.

...so how are breeders (that are not just propagating USDA stock) qualifying their bees as VSH? How are they able to provide VSH behavior without testing? How many generations have these stocks gone since they have been properly evaluated for VSH?

There is certainly less of a consensus about what constitutes a valid VSH test than there is for HYG...but if someone is going to claim that their bees are HYG or VSH, it seems there should be something observable that is being evaluated?

Any thoughts?

deknow
 
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#88 ·
I don't have much to offer here on this subject, I don't know genetics, or even where to begin when you want to breed for a certain trait or traits. It is common sense though to understand that when you buy a VSH queen and a daughter queen is raised from her and she open mates, the chances are good that the resulting offspring will not have as much resistance to varroa as the original queen you started out with. The way I see it, and I could be wrong, is that VSH breeding is an experiment in futility. Really, what good is it to develop VSH characteristics in a queen only to have it disappear in a couple generations of open matings? If the ultimate goal is to flood the entire country with VSH bees so that no matter what drones a queen mates with, the offspring will have some VSH in them, I think that too is an unrealistic goal. So really, what is the end game of VSH breeding, I know that in the short term it is making a market for queens that are supposed to help with varroa, but those buyers will soon realize that some treatments are also necessary at some point to keep the hives alive. John
 
#92 ·
" Yet, despite rather easy to follow procedures for assaying VSH behavior, virtually no one is doing it."- deknow

After my conversation with Dr Harbo, this procedure sounds like hours time consuming of tedious microscopy work. He said it is very, very slow going. It comes down determining the ratio of reproductive mites to non reproductive mites. I think one could easily underestimate the value of good field observations and heavy selection pressure. This is how we came up with breeders that were able to test 100% hygienic the FIRST time we ever tested. I am expecting similar results when we start determining reproductive ratios here. I am also looking forward to trying another breeder from Dr Harbo. She gets here in April.
 
#93 ·
...I used the phrase, "easy to follow" rather than "easy" for a reason...it may be tedious and time consuming, but it is not hard to do....kind of like splitting a cord of wood (easy to do, but tedious) vs carving a statue (requires much more skill and talent than splitting logs).

What were you starting with when you were able to produce breeders with 100% VSH expression?

How did you determine that they were 100% VSH?

What observations were you using to select VSH tratis?



deknow
 
#98 · (Edited)
...I used the phrase, "easy to follow" rather than "easy" for a reason...it may be tedious and time consuming, but it is not hard to do....kind of like splitting a cord of wood (easy to do, but tedious) vs carving a statue (requires much more skill and talent than splitting logs).

What were you starting with when you were able to produce breeders with 100% VSH expression?

How did you determine that they were 100% VSH?

What observations were you using to select VSH tratis?




deknow
As ptmerrill pointed out I was referring to HYG behavior, using the freeze killed brood assay. I found it interesting that we were able to obtain such results the first time. We reached this point by previously selecting productive hives year to year that were able to cope with mites without an acraricide. I suspect we will see similar results this spring when we start comparing ratios of fertile vs infertile mites.
 
#94 ·
Wow 100% VSH! Nice work! :)

After an 8 year program, best we've done so far in my country is 80% VSH, and still have not been able to fix the trait.

So question JBJ, does 100% VSH translate into zero mite reproduction in the hive?
 
#95 ·
""In the whole world of VSH bees available to the beekeeper, is there really only one person measuring? Are all the VSH bees ultimately coming from a few colonies at the USDA? Does this sound like something that will look smart in hindsight?

deknow""

I agree with you that there are only a handful of people testing for VSH. This does not limit the gene pool that VSH draws from. Those doing the testing are working with large and very diverse commercial beekeepers giving them access to ten of thousands of economically viable hives used all over the country in different applications. Because of the intense testing needed, it does appear most people who produce queens and cells will have to outsource the testing or buy stock every year. It does require more effort and expense from those want to raise VSH queens. 3rd party testing of potential breeder queens might become a new business for someone if VSH does 'take off'.

Good luck to all this spring
ryan
 
#99 ·
john, if i wanted to compare fertile to infertile mites in my colonies, and wanted to compare that measure with yours and others, how would i do it?

i assume it would mean uncapping about 100 worker brood larvae and comparing the ratio of brood with only one mite to brood with multiple mites, and/or turn that ratio into a percentage?

does it take a microscope to see immature mites?

are there certain times of year that this is done?

is this done in addition to or to replace freeze killed brood assay?

many thanks.
 
#100 ·
squarepeg, I hope John gets back with answers to your questions.

I only jump in because I've been playing around trying to see how practical a protocol of quantifying these fertile vs infertile mites might be...just for my curiosity. Got the bees...bees got mites...have the scopes...had some time, so I went to look for them.

Tedious and slow is to put it mildly.

As a protocol, I tried to follow the one described by Rinderer and Kulincevic. I have the PDF but I believe the USDA Bee lab also has the paper in its entirety on their site. Yes, uncapping 100 worker brood cells, but not any brood...16-17 days old(dark eyes and light brown abdomen). That right there, just trying to gauge and figure out the whole thing, it means you have to open more than 100 cells. As you do, trying to identify and classify the mites you do find, is also very slow.
A 20x-40x stereo microscope would suffice for the purpose...You're looking for the female that initially got into the cell and her progeny (mature male, daughter(s) mature and imature, and eggs. Just learning to differentiate them is not hard, they clearly look very different.

Gathering all of them, making sure you don't miss too many...tabulating...and then interpreting, especially if you try to compare your results with what the literature or other beeks willing to do this might have, would also take time.
Personally I just tried 2 hives that were started as splits in the spring(March) and the same 2 hives in the fall...In the spring, I did see mites on the bees, but hardly any on worker pupae that I was looking to tabulate...there were some on drone brood, but I did not consider those. Coming fall...different story. One hive had 65 fertile females/100 cells the other 85/100 cells. I say fertile because they all had progeny...now, getting to a consistent way of pulling pupa out, looking for the mites, counting, differentiating the progeny, tabulating... went very slow and I just about gave up. Gets hard on your eyes.:eek:

Now, getting to something you can do as a routine...and at the same time run a breeding/selection program that you adjust based on the results you gather, that is well above my capacity. I just wanted to learn to see these buggers in action...that was all. For now.

As a side note, those two hives died going into the winter. Of course, loaded with mites.

I am also curious how folks that say they test routinely for VSH do it...

Good luck everybody:)
 
#101 · (Edited)
squarepeg wrote:
"john, if i wanted to compare fertile to infertile mites in my colonies, and wanted to compare that measure with yours and others, how would i do it?"
apis maximus wrote:
"As a protocol, I tried to follow the one described by Rinderer and Kulincevic."

Just to reiterate the information:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?277652-VSH-Breeding#29

(Contains info on testing from earlier in this thread).


When we received our SARE grant, we intended to compare the Freeze Killed Brood Assay
John and others use with the Alcohol Wash Assay, in the context of selection for varroa resistance.
The way the research worked out we did not have enough resources to compare the two tests but we did
show the value of the alcohol wash assay in a mite resistant breeding program and we demonstrate
our take on how to perform it (there a a few ways to do it around the world). We have used this assay for many years and it
has helped us to breed for productive bees while remaining treatment-free.

Link to that research:
www.vpqueenbees.com/awa




Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenebes.com
 
#102 ·
I would not have brought Adam's sare grant up in the context of this discussion, but since he brought it up........

I've read this report several times, and I don't understand what the grant went towards. You did an alcohol wash on 20 hives, 3 times throughout a single season.

What did the money pay for?
What was learned that we didn't already know?
Why does doing rather routine mite counts in a commercial breeding population/program rate getting a grant?
Was anything else done besides doing a total of 60 mite counts?
What does it cost to perform 60 alcohol washes and graph the results?
Were you not doing mite counts before running this grant?

Deknow
 
#103 ·
DeKnow, Do you have any idea what research or studies cost? Do you realize that those that do the study get paid for their time? $20,000 woudl not pay for 6 months of my time. Much less the time of someone with a degree or otherwise qualified to conduct a study.

IN some cases the grant had to pay for the colonies that where studied in the first place.

You get such grants often by applying for them. And just like any other application process your application is compared to everyone elses and if you come out on top. that is what qualified you.

I understand you question this study or the cost of it. Where is your better study and who funded it at what price? I will take a conducted study over the none existent one.

A study at best provides only a small bit of data. that must then bee added to everything else we know.

I work at a place that in the last year spent 13.5 million dollars to study how a bridge breaks apart in an earthquake. and that is not counting the 30 some million they paid to build the building they built the bridge inside. they are currently building a second building so they can build a bigger bridge next time.

Truth is research is very expensive and I don't ever see beekeeping funding it on a serious level.
 
#104 · (Edited)
Daniel,
Please read Adam's report:

http://www.vpqueenbees.com/awa/FNE08-631_final.pdf

Note that the costs were about $50 total, plus time (his estimate of 1.75 hours/colony for the 3 tests seems a bit much....does it really take anywhere near 10 minutes to open a colony and find frames with active brood?)...but even if we take his numbers for the timing, that comes to a total of 35 hours of work (plus making a web page, a few photos and a graph).

What was done in those 35 hours with $50 worth of supplies? He did mite counts on his own colonies in a standard way that any number of those that go around and speak to beekeeping groups would tell you to sample mites. Nothing new was attempted. Nothing was compared to anything else. There was no evaluation of anything. All that appears to have been done is a bee breeder doing a few mite counts.

I am all for good research. I'm not sure this qualifies as research at all (good or bad).

What do you think was learned here?

Personally, I'd be embarrased to take $4347 as a SARE grant for this. $4347-$50(for supplies)=$4297. Take the 35 hours he has accounted for in the sampling, add another 35 hours to do the web page, photos and graph (probably closer to 10 hours, but let's work with 35), and you end up with Adam being paid over $60/hour to do standard mite samples of his own breeding stock (that I assume he was already doing mite counts on one way or another)...and comparing this method of doing mite samples to NOTHING.

I don't see value being created with over $4,000 in resources being spent. I do see a commercial breeder getting paid with a SARE grant to do exactly what he should already be doing (and probably was already doing).


deknow



deknow
 
#111 ·
Daniel,
Please read Adam's report:

http://www.vpqueenbees.com/awa/FNE08-631_final.pdf

Note that the costs were about $50 total, plus time (his estimate of 1.75 hours/colony for the 3 tests seems a bit much....does it really take anywhere near 10 minutes to open a colony and find frames with active brood?)...but even if we take his numbers for the timing, that comes to a total of 35 hours of work (plus making a web page, a few photos and a graph).

What was done in those 35 hours with $50 worth of supplies? He did mite counts on his own colonies in a standard way that any number of those that go around and speak to beekeeping groups would tell you to sample mites. Nothing new was attempted. Nothing was compared to anything else. There was no evaluation of anything. All that appears to have been done is a bee breeder doing a few mite counts.

I am all for good research. I'm not sure this qualifies as research at all (good or bad).

What do you think was learned here?

Personally, I'd be embarrased to take $4347 as a SARE grant for this. $4347-$50(for supplies)=$4297. Take the 35 hours he has accounted for in the sampling, add another 35 hours to do the web page, photos and graph (probably closer to 10 hours, but let's work with 35), and you end up with Adam being paid over $60/hour to do standard mite samples of his own breeding stock (that I assume he was already doing mite counts on one way or another)...and comparing this method of doing mite samples to NOTHING.

I don't see value being created with over $4,000 in resources being spent. I do see a commercial breeder getting paid with a SARE grant to do exactly what he should already be doing (and probably was already doing).

Funny how assumptions are relative. I'm sorry if you felt that the grant we received and performed
according to our agreement with SARE was as you state:

"I don't see value being created with over $4,000 in resources being spent"


The SARE people were very happy with the results, actually. The main
expenses were for the bees and establishing the colonies. We were going to
use a randomized block design in two sites. The colonies we used needed to
be established...all of this is described in the grant report. The control
colonies did so poorly that we pretty much had to scrap the original
experiment, as stated in the report. We salvaged what we could and did the
Alcohol Wash Assay, as per the report and with SARE's approval.

The cost was mainly for time and travel. We had to get the colonies set up.
The experiment would not have been valid if we'd had used established
colonies. You can't get SARE grant money for equipment. Also, SARE pays you
after you perform the research. We came up with the money to do the
experiment. If SARE felt that we were not completing our part of the
arrangement, they would not have reimbursed us for the costs we estimated
and submitted.

However, your opinion of what we were granted, based on your knowledge of
what occurred is certainly valid. That's your right.

Since SARE at the level we were dealing with: "Farmer Grant" is used to
help farmer's with "on the farm research" to make their production more
sustainable, I feel that the research was totally successful. We learned how to conduct
standardized mite counts using the Alcohol Wash Assay over a season,
learned that the assay is both useful for selection and to keep track of
the mite population, and learned that our selection was leading to lower
phoretic mite counts in our bee population. This is a selection tool we
use as part of our breeding program.

I'm sorry that you feel the research we did wasn't valid or useful--we do
get quite steady stream of hits on the Alcohol Wash Assay info we put on
the internet so people are reading about the assay.


Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com
 
#105 ·
Wow, way to go deknow, I doubt that Adam would find much pleasure after that in helping the rest of us with any of "our" VSH questions. He's one of the VERY FEW that believes and is committed to this from the beginning. Now, with more time invested he would probably set up a different program. Maybe not, but good for him he got interested before "everyone" else jumped on this bandwagon!!
 
#106 ·
Doing mite counts in 2009 is hardly cutting edge. Note that the purpose was to compare alcohol washes with freeze testing.....but freeze testing was never done. The other purpose was to compare mite resistant lines with non resistant lines..this also was not done.
I've brought these issues up before, and I assume that Adam knows my position on this.....and brought it up anyways.

Deknow
 
#109 ·
Well, I don't have a "job", in that no one gives me a paycheck. I have had many jobs, including flutemaker, webmaster, web content developer at a large NYC advertising agency, musician, office cleaner (that includes the toilets), bike mechanic, electronics repair technician, CAD technician, machinist, speech recognition systems customization and training (for hospitals, doctors, lawyers, judges, people with disabilities, college professors, etc), network systems administration (at a taxi company....there is a surprising amount of kluged together computer systems at an old cab company)....all that without any of the beekeeping stuff.

Ramona and i make the bulk of our living selling honey both retail at markets, and wholesale to larger stores. In the last few months, we've done a 7 day a week market in a tent in Downtown Boston throughout the month of December, 3 talks at MIT, running a bee school in Boston (both beginners and advanced), done a lot of store support (demos/tastings) for our wholesale accounts.

Right now I'm posting on Beesource. In a few minutes, I'll be printing and cutting tags for a large corporate Valentines Day gift order. This afternoon I'll be preparing outlines for talks coming up and doing some other writing. Tonight we have a board meeting for our county bee club. On Monday we sold a few books. and also met with another hotel that is interested in having bees on their roof (as I sign off now, Ramona and I are going to brainstorm about how we can approach that project).

No boss=No paycheck

No job. Always working.


deknow
 
#110 ·
...apologies that my previous post went out under Ramonas name/acount.



I'd also like to say that I very much like Adam, and support much/most of what he and Kelly are doing. We enjoyed visiting with them over coffee a few years ago (we were driving through the area, and Adam invited us over for coffee).

Obviously, I'm in support of the treatment free breeding program they are maintaining. Selection for survival without treatments is an element that I think is missing in MANY breeding programs...and I think the key. Only if we cull what nature would cull (or something really close to that ideal) will nature's mechanisms (genetic, microbial, epigenetic, ???) operate as they should.

I'm less convinced about the VSH stuff (as I've already stated). I think the SARE grant work was a complete waste of money. The assay's (freeze kill and alcohol wash) weren't compared. The relationship between the one performed assay and suitability for selection wasn't explored. The only data produced was a graph of 3 mite counts done on 20 hives. Anyone that counts mites has that data, and it didn't cost them over $4,000 to produce it. He didn't do the work that the grant specified:http://mysare.sare.org/MySare/ProjectReport.aspx?do=viewRept&pn=FNE08-631&y=2008&t=2

The farmer will compare mite-tolerant queen lines with a normal line to see if two tests (selection assays) do indeed indicate mite tolerance in potential breeding stock.

I like Adam...but I refuse to feel embarrassed to point this stuff out. Wherever the fault lies (the person giving the grant, the person taking the grant, the quality of the queens, the weather, etc)....it is certainly not mine for reading closely enough to notice.



deknow
 
#112 ·
Deknow you are no where close to being like Adam. for one if i remember in an earlier post that you made the comment that you have never owned VSH bees. So how can you talk about them good or bad. I can tell you that since i have run VSH bees i have alot less winter dyeoff. My bees do have mites as well as everyone else. Thank goodness for Glenns,Adam(VP Queens),Bob, and all the smaller guys that are trying to move the VSH bees forward. if you will read ,these bees where released out to beekeepers so they could continue to improve on these bees. And that is what we are doing. Are these bees the silver bullet that some folks are looking for no. but they are alot better then some that i have had in the past. if you want things done your way than get some and do the testing and share with others and quit bashing the guys that are doing things the way they want to. Thanks to Adam, glenn,s and the other breeders that are working to together to improve VSH honeybees.
 
#113 ·
Going back to the subject at hand. We can use two types of analysis for our observations that we use to make breeding decisions; qualitative and quantitative. We really need both to see the whole picture. I am confident that traits can be maintained by getting stock from people who have done the quantitative work and then maintained in the field under the appropriate selection pressure and qualitative field observations. We use both, however we are stepping up a bit more this year on the quantitative side.

Also from Harbo's web site:

"A most valuable feature of VSH is that bees will express a high level of mite resistance when a colony contains as little as 50% of the alleles for VSH. A simple way to produce such a colony is to raise daughter queens from a VSH breeder and allow the daughters to naturally mate. This is great news for queen producers. They can rear VSH queens, mate them to any drones, and those queens will produce colonies that require no chemical control for varroa. Another benefit is that beekeepers can have mite resistant colonies without destroying their existing bee population – which may be well adapted to a certain locale or have desirable beekeeping qualities."

This means there still should be plenty of benefit in F1 and F2 crosses, especially if the right drones are involved.
 
#150 ·
Thanks for pointing that out. That is 13 year old information on that particular page. Need to do some updating as soon as we are done putting in the almonds. We are at a state now where if we find a hive in trouble with mites (and yes we still sometimes do) the protocol is to clean them up with essential oils and requeen with a better prospect. Varying degrees of heritability with mite coping traits is a real challenge, but I am confident that demonstrable progress can and has been been made. We do find bullet proof queens regularly, however reproducing them in a true breeding way is a challenge and this is why we are adding more isolated mating yards and two II stations to the operation. That being said we often see the best breeders make it to their third year in a commercial setting before they start to unravel.
 
#151 ·
We do find bullet proof queens regularly, however reproducing them in a true breeding way is a challenge and this is why we are adding more isolated mating yards and two II stations to the operation. That being said we often see the best breeders make it to their third year in a commercial setting before they start to unravel.
Would those "best breeders that make it to the third year" be obtained using both II, and isolated mating yards ? Or are you talking just about II breeders?
When you say they start to unravel, you mean the hive gets taken over by the mites or that the queen's laying performance diminishes?

Thanks.
 
#117 ·
@ptmerrill
The first go around, it took me about 4 hours. There were not that many mites and I was thinking I am missing them...You uncap, if the bee pupae is the right age and you see the mite(s) on her face then you've got something. But sometimes the mite(s) is not right under the cap so I took every pupae out and looked it over under the scope. Cell by cell, one pupae at the time. Slow...
On the second hive I started uncapping and kept uncapping until I had 100 that looked the right stage. Then, I pulled all of them out in a petri dish...bee pupae, mites and whatever else was in that cell. I did have a lighted otoscope handy and checked the empty cells just to see if I miss anything. If I did, I use a Q tip in a swirling motion in the cell, and looked the Q-tip under the scope. Most of the time, I would find the male that way.
Since everything looked crowded in the dish, I took a small glass shelf and dumped the petri dish contents on it.
Placed the glass shelf under the scope ( scope has light under its glass stage so it worked great) and starting the observing/sorting and tabulating...This way took about 2 hours.
On the fall check, had more mites/stages showing, using the second described technique, took about 3 hours.
 
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