Treatment-Free Beekeeping in Norway scientifically studied

[1102009]

Thanks MB.
I think I must reduce smoking, do more like you do.
I already wait a while after first puff as you advised and this is really good.
Before closing up I give too much smoke I believe. Thinking the queen must go down so not to be hurt.

[Juhani Lunden]

From Terje Reinertsen study, by Oddie and Neumann:

"Experiments were conducted in the Østlandet region, Norway, during local late summer and early fall 2015. Surviving colonies were of a mixed origin (Buckfast) that had been kept without any V. destructor treatments for 19 years prior to the study."


From another study of Oddie and Büchler (thanks to Hunajavelho!):

"Norway: Experiments were conducted with surviving and susceptible A. m. carnica colonies in separate apiaries 60 km apart near Oslo between August and September 2015, with the susceptible controls located within an apicultural conservation area."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-26001-7


I wonder if here is a mistake, or are we talking of two separate resistant populations? Or just misleading? They are not saying the origin of the surviving population in the latter (Büchler) study.

[lharder]

Nice paper, I haven't heard of this mechanism of uncapping/recapping without brood removal. May be a better way of documenting mites (reproductive success) than actual mite counts themselves. Also interesting that they had to bring in mites to study for some of the resistant bees.

I think the paper was using one population in Norway and Sweden and 2 resistant populations in France. Hopefully Germany gets it act together and has a loci of resistant bees soon.

[AR1]

http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-26001-7

This study of surviving treatment free colonies in Sweden, Norway and France, the mechanism was uncapping and recapping cells. Mite reproductive success was reduced when worker bees uncapped then recapped cells, resulting in colonies that survived.

[Hunajavelho]

Terje Reinertsen, Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNb...ovxJoridXWefvw

[squarepeg]

many thanks for the link hunajavehol.

here is paper i saw linked in another forum this morning looking at cell size of survivor colonies in the Nordic regions:

https://link.springer.com/article/10...5f_z5B1l8IrKLg

they conclude that cell size was a potential factor in susceptible colonies but not a key factor in surviving colonies resulting from natural selection.

[Juhani Lunden]

Visit to Terje Reinertsen in my blog.

https://naturebees.wordpress.com/201...je-reinertsen/

[squarepeg]

i enjoyed reading that juhani, thank you for sharing it.

[AR1]

Yes. Nice visit. Thanks for posting.
A question. In Europe is there anything resembling the mass movement of hives to a small area similar to the US with almonds? I believe this is a huge part of the difficulty we have in the US with finding resistant bees. Mite populations are mixed every year so any new virus they carry is spread that same year all across the US.

[Juhani Lunden]

A question. In Europe is there anything resembling the mass movement of hives to a small area similar to the US with almonds?

No.
However beekeepers in Central Europe move a lot of bees, here and there to different crops. In the Nordic countries that is much less common, in fact in Finland there are very few (I know one) commercial beekeepers, who could be called migratory beekeepers, but nothing like almonds in US, not near.

[GregV]

Yes. Nice visit. Thanks for posting.
A question. In Europe is there anything resembling the mass movement of hives to a small area similar to the US with almonds? I believe this is a huge part of the difficulty we have in the US with finding resistant bees. Mite populations are mixed every year so any new virus they carry is spread that same year all across the US.

Keep in mind, while the open Euro-zone is present, there are still plenty of administrative and physical obstacles for those willing to move long distances.
A very good thing.

However, wide migratory beekeeping in Russia and Ukraine could be possible due to large open unrestricted spaces (similar to the US).
But at present - infrastructure/business ways are just not there.

After watching the N. American beekeeping ways via Youtube and such, some people will probably try copying the same.
For example, Ian's channel is very, very popular in Russia (the Canadian beekeeper videos are routinely translated into Russian) - people are trying to copy many of his practices.
Some other channels are popular and translated too.
So people are really watching now days and learning the ways.
I can see the long-distance migratory keeping developing in Russia as a copy-cat (especially along North-South routes) - not necessarily good without understanding all the implications. But if money is to be made, people will go after it. For now it will be mostly after the local honey flows; I don't see someone paying $$ just for the pollination.