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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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#29 ·
A great thread...love to hear from Jeff on VSH: thank you for all your
work Dr. Harris!

VSH in a population can reduce mite levels and associated problems
(vectored virus, other ones). Large commercial honey producers who run 10's
of thousands of colonies and large commercial queen producers feel that VSH
expression is helping their bee population's vigor. VSH is certainly not
the only answer to honey bee health in apiculture but it is a simple and
effective way to add robustness in the face of hostile pathogens and tough,
stressful management.

Selecting for VSH behavior isn't that hard, it just takes time and one has
to be committed to performing the test.

Link:
http://www.extension.org/pages/30984/selecting-for-varroa-sensitive-hygiene

The "Mite Infertility" test is the most straightforward.

We will be using this test scenario and an alcohol wash test scenario to asses
VSH levels in our breeding colonies.

Alcohol Wash Link:
www.vpqueenbees.com/awa

We also run a completely treatment free operation, so simply, the colonies
that perform well meeting our breeding standards are used to make breeder queens--some of them have known VSH
expression levels (as they were obtained from germplasm from the USDA and crossed using AI), others do not, but
assuming they are alive and thriving, they are doing well somehow.

All our future breeding stock will be vetted using both tests, in addition to our suite of performance testing.

One of the goals the USDA hopes to achieve with the VSH program is for
breeders and queen producers to learn how to test for the behavior. The
chance the behavior is in your bee population is fairly good: finding it
and breeding from those queens that show it, is more difficult.

On the VSHBreeders forum (www.vshbreeders.org), most posters are using VSH stock and
just getting into queen breeding. Our operation and Tom Glenn's operation
as well as a few other breeder's there all obtained germplasm from the USDA
program--then it has been up to us to make something from the material.

It is encouraged to trade stock on the forum, and by joining and contributing, one
might find really excellent bee stock to make queens from. Commercial operators trade stock all the time--it's a great way to keep
one's diversity high while testing new blood.

VP Queen Bees will offer pure VSH breeding stock, Pol-line stock, and VSH expressing
Carniolan/Italian stock like Tom Glenn did: we will be partnering with the USDA Lab at Baton Rouge.
We plan to continue producing VSH breeding germplasm for folks to use and incorporate into their operation.

Please feel free to contact me or Kelly about VSH stock and please surf
over to VSHBreeders.org and see what's going on.

Stock trading for free with others who have similar goals, is a pretty good deal! :D


Adam Finkelstein & Kelly Rausch
www.vpqueenbees.com
 
#30 ·
adam, i'm set up for the alcohol washes, but not sure exactly how to measure infertility.

would pulling a frame of capped drone brood just prior to emergence work? how many pupae would one need to inspect? what is a good percentage of infertility?
 
#31 ·
#32 ·
got it! this is new info for me. looks like i've got some homework to do! :)

the mississippi campus is not that far from me, but the alabama a & m is even closer. are there labs with colonies that one can visit?
 
#33 ·
just watched the video of dr. harris' lecture on the extension.org site. i wasn't aware that the hygienic behavior involved multiple uncapping and recapping of brood. fascinating.

adam, do you have a benchmark for threshold infestation rate and colony survival in your treatment free bees?

what is your approach to managing colonies in which that threshold is exceeded?

many thanks.
 
#34 ·
Jeff,

I agree, artificially selected traits revert to a much lower equilibrium once the selection pressure is removed. However, if Varroa is the issue or selection force on honey bee survival that we believe it to be, it may suggest that VSH should be greatly favored in selection if it is beneficial for survival. I agree that VSH does reduce Varroa levels, but at a huge cost to overall colony fitness. Does this provide some insight as to where VSH appears at such a low frequency in unselected populations? I believe Adam’s statement that VSH has added “vigor” to commercial operations is inaccurate. That has not been my experience each time I have attempted to incorporate the trait. Hybrid vigor appears to confound a perceived benefit to colony health and fitness when pure VSH lines are outcrossed. The initial outcrosses can be productive, but again the trait does not appear to stabilize in the sense that an “ideal” level can be identified and targeted. This in itself makes such a trait challenging for commercial beekeepers to rely on as a method of control. I am not aware of commercial operations using VSH stock on a large scale. It also makes me wonder why Bob Danka would solicit feedback from beekeepers as to what “soft treatments” they use in conjunction with their VSH stock. I don’t treat my stock either, but I do not advocate this approach to commercial beekeepers that rely on their colonies in a production environment, which is a different animal all together.

Each time I have attempted to stabilize the VSH trait, things look good for the first initial cross or two. Once the frequency/expression of the trait is increased the negative aspects of VSH appear, as what is seen in the parental lines. I am not certain it is a matter of maintaining a larger population modeled after Page and Laidlaw. It does not appear to be an issue of inbreeding, but rather a consequence of the behavior itself

Jeff, you may understand this trait better than anyone, but I am at a loss as to how or why it would be beneficial to incorporate such a trait into a production line. I believe there have been many attempts over the many years to incorporate VSH into programs, but it does not appear to be functional.

Joe
 
#37 ·
Jeff, I believe Adam’s statement that VSH has added “vigor” to commercial operations is inaccurate. That has not been my experience each time I have attempted to incorporate the trait.

Each time I have attempted to stabilize the VSH trait, things look good for the first initial cross or two. Once the frequency/expression of the trait is increased the negative aspects of VSH appear, as what is seen in the parental lines. I am not certain it is a matter of maintaining a larger population modeled after Page and Laidlaw. It does not appear to be an issue of inbreeding, but rather a consequence of the behavior itself
Joe,
there's a very good demand for VSH stock used by breeders and producers.
Many are using the VSH suite in sub-populations and are currently testing.
I would not state that VSH is helping to provide vigor in stocks
if I did not have the actual demand for VSH breeding stock from
queen breeders. Maybe their breeding programs are different then
yours?


Regarding Jeff's mention of his breeding program, The concept of
a VSH Italian type bee, productive and showing mite-resistance,
has been conceptualized and implemented with the Pol-line program.
Jeff's mention of using selection colonies based on static operations
is another take on this. Many queen breeding programs have as their
final goal, a queen type that is both productive in a commercial
management scenario and resistant to mites and associated pathogens
enough to need fewer annual chemical treatments. This is what we
all want! It is a work in progress.


Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com
 
#35 ·
Joe,

It almost sounds like the VSH lines express the hybrid vigor, at least for mite control. Is this a case where the most productive, commercially, queens are daughters of a VSH queen?

Is a classic type of hybrid vigor seen when honey bee races are crossed? Are they homogenous enough?

Tom
 
#36 ·
Tom,

Jeff is the expert on the intricacies of VSH. In my experience, lines that expressed a high level of VSH behavior were very poor colonies. Daughter queens raised from highly selected lines still retain approximately 50% expression of the behavior. However, I think the daughter queens were also getting a boost from hybrid vigor as well because it appeared that in order to get a high frequency of VSH, inbreeding was necessary.

I think this gets back to Deknow’s initial post about who is actually selecting for VSH and how does the beekeeper know what he or she is buying. In my experience, the assumption is that good production queens actually expressed a notable level of VSH behavior. However, when I evaluated crosses, colonies with high level expression of VSH were often times not very viable, especially the longer the colony was intact. Jeff commented that one of his goals is to develop a line with “good brood quality throughout the entire year”. I think that is the key.

Joe
 
#40 ·
Adam,

I agree there is demand for inseminated breeder queens. However, I do not agree that VSH is a productive part of that demand. Deknow’s original point was that a lot of people use the term VSH, but how many are actually selecting for it. My contention is there are a lot of queens sold as “VSH” that do not express the behavioral characteristic at a beneficial level. If the stock was expressing VSH at a beneficial level, beekeepers would see just how energetically expensive and detrimental the trait is to colony survival. This is why I suggested the “VSH breeder queens” and the performance of their daughters are confounded by heterosis expressed in subsequent generations, with no apparent benefit or expression of VSH. Please correct me if you disagree, but I believe you as well as Tom and Suki were constantly making outcrosses to maintain the vitality of the lines.

You mentioned the Pol-line program. Perhaps Jeff can share further details, but I would hardly call that a program by any standard. My understanding of the development of the “Pol-line” was that daughter queens from a single VSH queen were free flight mated in a larger commercial operation that I have worked with and supplied stock to for many years. The free flight mated queens were then tracked through the operation and the best later became the foundation for semen supplied to Tom and Suki. Again, I think this was an outcross attempting to increase vigor and mask the detrimental effects observed when a high frequency of VSH is observed in a population.

I think it is important that beekeepers know what they are actually buying. It takes many years to establish and test lines. Simply making a cross and putting a label on it does not constitute a breeding program. Again, I think this is Deknow’s actual point.

Joe
 
#62 · (Edited)
Adam,

I agree there is demand for inseminated breeder queens. However, I do not
agree that VSH is a productive part of that demand. Deknow's original point
was that a lot of people use the term VSH, but how many are actually
selecting for it. My contention is there are a lot of queens sold as "VSH"
that do not express the behavioral characteristic at a beneficial level. If
the stock was expressing VSH at a beneficial level, beekeepers would see
just how energetically expensive and detrimental the trait is to colony
survival. This is why I suggested the "VSH breeder queens" and the
performance of their daughters are confounded by heterosis expressed in
subsequent generations, with no apparent benefit or expression of VSH.
Please correct me if you disagree, but I believe you as well as Tom and
Suki were constantly making outcrosses to maintain the vitality of the
lines.
Hi Joe,
There's enough of a demand for VSH and VSH type inseminated breeder queens
to keep people busy during the season... :) Scepticism is healthy, certainly.
And yes, as we all know from reading the material here on beesource,
there's a very good reason to be sceptical when claims are made without
real-world proof. However, what's been done with the VSH program has been working for many
and with the Pol-line research and offerings to the public, VSH seems to be
helping in commercially tested scenarios. Here's a quote from Dr. Bob Danka
from the USDA Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics and Physiology Laboratory:

"An offshoot of the main VSH research is the development of the "Pol-line"
population. This effort began in 2008 when we selected some outcrossed VSH
colonies at the end of a test we ran in cooperation with a large beekeeping
operation whose focus is on crop pollination. The Pol-line population has
been augmented with more colonies each subsequent year, and all colonies
have been combined in annual propagations. Last year we propagated 32 queen
lines. The colonies that get added generally are chosen because they
survived with large bee populations and low varroa populations after being
used for migratory pollination and/or honey production. We have been
fortunate to be able to increase the level of selection during the past two
years by testing more bees that are managed in three, large-scale,
commercial migratory beekeeping operations. We are trying to create bees
that function well in such operations while retaining significant
expression of VSH. We distributed some of this breeding material through
Glenn Apiaries while we continue to work on developing the population
."

(full thread on USDA stock strains is here:
http://vshbreeders.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=153)

As with this program's breeding design, we're selecting for hardiness and
productivity with the ability to perform without any chemical treatments.
We use some foundation stock from the USDA, stock from other beekeepers that
manage their bees without treatment, stock from successful commercial
beekeepers who watch their treatments...you know the drill. We are not
solely crossing high VSH strains with other strains, but keeping a more
heterogeneous population with our suite of good economic traits as our base selector and
survivability as the main selection criterion over that. Some make it, some do not.
We'll be measuring VSH levels using the tests mentioned earlier in the
thread, this season and I am extremely interested to see how the VSH levels
correlate with the overall population's success.

To answer your question, Joe, we do make outcrosses sometimes, but we're
more often following a more gradual mating design where we try to cross the
whole desirable population to candidates, some of which are certainly
different and would exhibit localized hybrid-vigor, but mainly to desirable
members within the group. We test/vet new stock first and determine if it
is desirable before we make any crosses that would be considered
"outcrosses".

My understanding of the development of the "Pol-line" was that daughter
queens from a single VSH queen were free flight mated in a larger
commercial operation that I have worked with and supplied stock to for many
years. The free flight mated queens were then tracked through the operation
and the best later became the foundation for semen supplied to Tom and
Suki. Again, I think this was an outcross attempting to increase vigor and
mask the detrimental effects observed when a high frequency of VSH is
observed in a population.
This was the initial description--there have been several years of selection
within the three cooperators' operations and at the USDA Lab at Baton Rouge.
The offering of the initial germplasm was made, and the results were
varied. As the program has grown, the results have become more uniform and
positive.

What I found interesting about the Pol-line data I saw at Baton Rouge was
that although the Pol-line strains were less high in VSH expression compared to pure
VSH expressing stock, they performed well over-Winter and showed very good mite resistance,
while being more productive then the pure VSH colonies. There is enough of something there
to impart resistance.

I think it is important that beekeepers know what they are actually buying.
It takes many years to establish and test lines. Simply making a cross and
putting a label on it does not constitute a breeding program. Again, I
think this is Deknow's actual point.
Sure, I agree. I don't think anyone involved with VSH breeding is doing
what Deknow's actual point was addressing. Scepticism is healthy! Results
obtained through empirical application support and verify concepts and
ideas. VSH in bee breeding will be tested in the years to come and
hopefully, it will pass the test!

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com
 
#41 ·
Joe,

I was curious, apart from VSH/hygenic behavior, do we know how 'survivor' stocks combat the mites? Is it better grooming we need to look for or something that hasn't been quantified? I only ask because much of the time I wonder how regionality and mainly non-migratory success of treatment free management styles affect the overall success of the programs, or maybe there's migratory success stories of treatment free??
 
#42 ·
thanks jrg for asking that question. i too am interested in a measure or a count or a benchmark beyond just survival in assesing this trait. many of the treatment free beekeepers i ask reply they don't measure, as survival alone dictates management.

maybe those of us keeping treatment free and raising queens could look at similar measures as jeff does, and we could compare notes. i am in the learning mode as to how to select and deselect for heartiness including mite resistance. what are the best tools at our disposal? how do those of you that have been doing this already approach it?

(you don't have to answer if it means revealing any trade secrets and/or proprietary and confidential information)

i love the idea of swapping our best queens, if we all use some sort of standard measure, it would make the selection and swapping more meaningful.
 
#44 ·
I guess I should keep my mouth shut but here goes. I sell open mated VSH queens. I am not a queen breeder but more a queen propagator. I don't have the time to be a breeder, so I buy II pure VSH queens from Tom Glenn,who will be missed by many, Adam at VP Queens and Dr. Harbo. I take those queens, graft from them, and mate the resulting daughters to drones produced by the previous years queens. I use what I need and sell the rest. I try to produce above average queens by starting small number of cells in large cell builders, using larger mating nucs, running 3 week cycles so queens are laying well when pulled and never banking queens. It seems to be working.

I am a small non-migratory beekeeper with around 150 hive. They are treatment free. I loose less than 20% per year to all problems. We produced a little over 100 lbs per hive this year. By my definition that is successfull.

VSH works for me, but I am sure Joe's breeders would too. This is not a one size fits all business. What works for me may not work in a northern migratory operation.

I realize treatment free won't work for everyone. But it is working for some, and other are able to drop from hard chemicals to softer treatments.

For the sake of bees and beekeeping lets quit bashing each others work and keep trying to find a solution.

Just my 2 cents, Johnny
 
#46 ·
Johnny, my apologies if my comments and observations appeared to be “bashing” in nature. That was not my intent.

VSH is an interesting trait to me. I worked with some of the initial lines developed, back when it was called Suppression of Mite Reproduction (SMR). My initial understanding was that SMR was influencing mite reproduction through a chemical cue, perhaps something the brood was producing or perhaps something the brood was lacking that was negatively impacting Varroa reproduction. The poor brood patterns were evident with the early lines, but I noticed that by removing a frame of eggs from a colony that expressed a high level of SMR and placing the frame of eggs in an unselected colony, I saw solid frames of brood develop. However, the frames of brood in the SMR colony looked like shotgun brood.

My graduate work focused on behavioral genetics, specifically learning and the pathways associated with underlying genetic mechanisms that influence the expression of behavioral traits. After seeing the difference in brood development when the SMR eggs were placed in an unselected colony, I began to think it may be more behavioral in nature. I think this is about the same time Marla started looking at the trait. Later the name was changed to Varroa Sensitive Hygience (VSH). I assume this was to reflect the work that showed it was a behavioral trait.

It is interesting to me from the perspective that it is another example of how behavior can influence resistance mechanisms. I think VSH would be ideal if the behavior was more targeted and directed. From my work with selecting lines for their abilities to perform specific learning tasks, I realized that honeybees have limits with regard to accuracy and performance. If VSH could be developed to more accurately target only Varroa infested brood and less of the general approach that is shows at this time, then beekeepers are in business. Nonetheless, another fascinating example of how behavior can be influenced by genetics.

Joe
 
#53 ·
I worked with some of the initial lines developed, back when it was called Suppression of Mite Reproduction (SMR).
Joe,

I was wondering what experience you have with recent releases of VSH bees from the USDA. Could there have been recent changes that could impact your general position on VSH?

I find VSH very puzzling. In particular, why are some people, like Broke-T and others, having such success, while others are not. Broke-T is working with (from what I gather) very pure VSH stock and claims good yields. In a previous post I recounted the brood viability issues that I've experienced with several attempts at VSH (Glenn stock and others). What could possibly explain the wide variation of performance? Any thoughts?
 
#47 ·
Johnny,

I'll try to write some more later (I've got some things to finish up first), but your post is important wrt my original questions.

You are (by your own words and description) not really "breeding", but mating this years imported stock to last years (essentially....I'm sure other genetics and other years stock creeps in there as well).

This has been my understanding of what buying VSH was good for...and it is encouraging to hear that it is working for you.

My interest is more towards breeding...both our own project, and encouraging as many other beekeepers to do the same...on any scale. The more we have going on, the more approaches, possibilities, and beekeepers thinking about breeding we have. I'm not trying to trash anyone's work, I'm trying to clarify what is actually happening....both for myself and for others. The way you are using VSH breeder stock is absolutely appropriate. You are relying on your suppliers to provide appropriate stock, and crossing to last years queens seems to give you the right active level of VSH for your needs. You either need to do what you are doing, or you need a way to measure VSH expression.

I know of more than two local (to me) breeding initiatives that started with VSH breeders to mate with whatever was local in an attempt to establish a mite resistant localized stock. This is a terrible use of VSH technology (for reasons I pointed out in the first post of this thread). There is little guidance out there to help a beekeeper figure this stuff out. There is a lot of "hype" around VSH and mite resistance....again, there are appropriate ways to apply this, and not so appropriate ones. My only goal is to try and clarify this stuff for us all.

deknow
 
#49 ·
Based on what Jeff and others have told me you need at least 50% VSH trait to help in varoa control. By using last years queens as drone mothers I am getting a lot of pure VSH drones out to mate with. This should put my VSH level somewhere between 50% and 100%. Jeff also said that early on the pure VSH queens had such a hight brood removal rate that they couldn't sustain themselves. That problem was addressed. I have not seen this problem in the pure VSH breeders that I have purchased the last two years. The breeders from VP Queens have been especially good layers.

Breeding cattle over the last 20 years has shown me that not only do you have to select for the good but also cull the bad. With bees, the mites do a pretty good job of handling that for us.

Just some more thoughts, Johnny
 
#52 ·
I've never been more challenged going into this year’s breeder queen selection. The VSH trait is very difficult to stabilize within a population. Too little, too much I’m always walking the tightrope. The top three selection criterion: 1. Mite management, 2. Honey Production, 3. Northwest Survivor. About half my population exhibit VSH to some degree. This is based on brood removal from light to so extreme external brood is added to maintain colony strength. The other half of the population has low mite counts and solid slabs of brood. The plan is to try and understand the grooming (non VSH ) better and see if I can separate the traits somewhat. All my VSH boosting has come from semen out of USDA Baton Rouge, LA. I must admit quantifying the grooming trait comes up a more than a little short. I want you to know I’m working on the question in the initial post starting this thread.

Mark
 
#54 ·
From where I'm sitting, I don't have any way of knowing how "VSH " the bees broke-t is working with. I assume that II stock from the USDA has been evaluated for VSH expression. I don't know anything about the other sources, and no one has claimed that they have been evaluated for VSH. I appreciate the openness we've had in this discussion, but I wouldn't make the assumptions about the level of VSH expression that broke-t is making. You either have to start with stock of know expression, or you have to evaluate what you have....my reading is that neither has been done.

Joe's analysis of the pol line queens is also what I came up with in reading up on it.

Selecting for common "good traits" does not select for VSH, and the confusion that has been created makes things more difficult for everyone.

Deknow
 
#56 ·
I probably shouldn't have singled out Broke-T, but since he contributed to this thread I thought it was most relevant to the discussion. Broke-T, I hope you're OK with me using you as a case of success with VSH bees.

From where I'm sitting, I don't have any way of knowing how "VSH " the bees broke-t is working with.
In an earlier post:

snip .....I buy II pure VSH queens from Tom Glenn,who will be missed by many, Adam at VP Queens and Dr. Harbo.
It seems to me that if anyone is producing VSH bees it would be these three. Perhaps you should spend some time reading Harbo's website. See http://www.harbobeeco.com/breeder-queens/ for details. As for Tom Glenn's bees, he had a CRADA with the USDA for which he received pure VSH germplasm, so I think its fair to assume that his stock was reasonably pure VSH. As for VP-queens, well he's contributed much here and I'll let him restate his VSH evaluation protocol.
 
#57 ·
We have incorporated the VSH/SMR genetics several times over the years; starting the first year they were available. It has been 3 or 4 years since I have purchased any breeders and we can still observe VSH in action. I feel the trait can be maintained with out sacrificing viability or productivity at all. This is done by selecting queens that can cope with heavy mite pressure without collapse or loss in productivity. Of the 16 breeders we identified this way, we subsequently performed a freeze killed brood assay, and about half had 100% clean-out in 24 hours. I believe when Spivac's Minnesota hygs were compared to VSH, a number of years ago, the VSH tested slightly more hygienic with the same test. Perhaps freeze killed brood assay can be used to screen for candidates that are likely to exhibit VSH? One thing for sure a decent level of VSH can be maintained with sacrifice of productivity. Variable degrees heredity continues to be a challenge but isolated mating yards and II should help.

There are many genes involved in the suppression of mite reproduction and VSH is not the only one. It should only be a matter of time before marker assisted selection comes to bear in our industry and we should see some rapid advances in bee breeding. I also feel it is better to look first for these traits we are interested in already productive lines as opposed to starting with extremely resistant but purportedly less productive lines.
 
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