Surviver Stock: the new bee race

[wayacoyote]

German Black. Carniolan. Buckfast. Caucasian. Italian. All-American. Midnight. Minnesota Hygienic.

When I got into beekeeping, I had all of these and more to wade through when making my selection. I have pages of descriptions and characteristics of the various races of bees. Do I want large-brood nest, mellow attitude, lots of propolis, frugality....? For a new beekeeper, I was choosing a race hoping to capitalize on the characteristics of the races, but not realizing that Beekeeper Bob who would sell me my nuc has been outmating his bees for over a decade. I was new. The information was tantilizing, and the choices numerous.

I am hoping to identify my resilient bee lineages. Others are selecting their stock based on survivablility. "Surviver Stock" is the new buzz-phrase (no pun intended). I have to wonder what current beginners will face with all of the choices. So I talk to ol' Beekeeper Bob and he tells me that he buys "Italians" but there's no telling what my queen will act like. Hey, I say, that's fair enough. He didn't claim to be selling me Italians. But now, anyone who can rear a queen from any mongrel source has the choice of this new catch phrase as the label: Surviver Stock.

So now, we queen rearers must educate our customers. "This isn't a true Italian. We did use some Russian genetics in the mix. I traded for some Drones with a fella beekeeper. I blended in some SMR stock. We out mate our queens. We have a selection process. We haven't treated (whatever that means) in 10 years. We have one breeder queen who has lived for nearly 2 whole years without being superceedured! This is true 'surviver stock'."

This rhetorical thread is for your feed back on what really IS Surviver Stock and if this phrase just a flash in the pan.

[adamf]

Originally Posted by wayacoyote

We haven't treated (whatever that means) in 10 years.

Yes, beekeepers, bees and queens come and go. Terms and names come and go.
Internet posters come and go. Bee-l, sci.agricultrue.beekeeping and www.beesource.com will come and go.

We have not used ANY chemicals, additives, or treatment to manage our bees since 1999.
In 1998 we used Apistan strips in one hive. Does that make "we haven't treated in 10 years" any clearer for you?

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com

[JBJ]

Waya poses a good question. In my humble opinion survivor stock refers to bees that can survive and thrive without Varroa treatments, and/or with virus and other pathogen exposure. For us it is more of a strategy than a strain; propagate from heavily selected or culled/exposed bees. For every catastrophic collapse of an operation I have seen, there always seems to be a percent or two that seem to thrive despite it all. Breed back from the survivors so to speak. Apply this and other performance based selection over time and you will eventually end up with a pretty good bee. It could be a mutt or it could be a purebred, but the mothers we graft from definitely will have a proven track record in the survivor department.

gotta run... beekeepers meeting tonight, more later.

[tecumseh]

can you breed fron non survivor stock?

[Michael Bush]

>can you breed fron non survivor stock?

That depends on what you want them to be able to survive...

[adamf]

Funny, three "Survivor Stock" breeders are posting on a survivor stock
thread.

As JBJ said, in breeding, if one selects (picks) breeders that are alive
and doing well, one is more likely to end up with offspring that will also
remain alive. A good breeder will also factor into their selection, other
valuable traits that make good bees.

Bee breeders have bred (and still do) bees to be completely yellow, bred
bees to have very long tounges, even bred bees to uncap and remove all
their pupal brood.

"Survivor stock" means that the breeder is using bees that are healthy
without any treatment or human interaction: either by not treating them, or
by using feral bees from remote locations. IPM may be used by some to maintain
their "survivor stock".

Several real-world examples exsist where this occurred naturally;
bees were imported to isolated locations and all but a few colonies died out;
the survivors bounced back to repopulate the area: survivior stock!

How can a potential queen buyer (like wayacoyote for example) know if a
"survivor stock" queen is any different from any other queen?

1. He can ask the queen breeder producing survivior stock, how they select their breeders.
Do they test their queens/workers? Tests may include hygienic behavior and mite counts,
as well as yield, temperament, degree of frugality, the list goes on and on...

2. How they mate their queens. Are the queens open mated (crossed to any
drones that fly) or mated in an area where some effort has been made to
saturate with desirable drones. Is isolated mating or instrumental
insemination used in the breeding program?

3. What foundation stock did the breeder use? What is the survivor stock
based on?

4. What stock maintenance does the breeder perform? Is the breeder bringing
in new blood, and if so, from where and how often?

Breeding bees requires time and effort. Making very nice queen cells from a
very nice breeder queen and mating the virgins is but part of improving
stock--a goal any bee breeder hopes to achieve.

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com

[Flyer Jim]

Originally Posted by tecumseh

can you breed fron non survivor stock?

good one tecumseh

[bluegrass]

I think that suriver stock is a term that is generally used to refer to bees that are decendent of ferals that survived on their own in a tree or wall and then were brought back into domestication. They are survivor stock because they were able to live on thier own and survive mites, shb, wax moths, and whatever else without treatment or intervention from man.

Basically some bees swarm and go feral and die off shortly after; others survive and their decendants are survival stock.

IMO most (all) US bees are mutts or grade bees. They have the characteristics of Italians, Russians, etc, but they are not pure breeds no matter what breeder they came from.

[srd]

I'm new to this group and plan to start with two hives this spring.
These bees will be collected from the wall of father-in-laws home and the space under the bed in his travel trailor that been parked for several years in his back yard. These bees have been around in these two locations for at least 4 years that I know of.
My dad and I kept pollination hive quite a few years back and now that he's passed away I'm trying to get back some of the fun we had together.
Wouldn't wild hives such as these be considered survivors?
I want to use the top bar hives that i've built this winter.
Sid

[Michael Bush]

>Wouldn't wild hives such as these be considered survivors?

For my definition, that would depend how long they have survived. But that's a good start.