The COMB project colocates 12 hives, 4 each in a "Conventional", "Organic Acid" and "Chemical Free" management strategy, at the apiaries of participating beekeepers.
The COMB project's researcher Dr. Robyn Underwood has posted a (rather skeletal) update.
The key sentences: " Varroa mites were well controlled in CON and ORG colonies. They were much higher, beginning in late summer, in the CF colonies."
"The overwintering losses in CON and ORG colonies were easily made up by splitting. Some CF colonies were able to be split, but there were not enough colonies made to completely make up for losses."
" Going into the winter of 2019-2020, we have 218 colonies; 42 CF, 87 CON, and 89 ORG. We’re hoping for great survival!"
In the fall of 2018 all colonies in the project were requeened with "feral, TF survivors" from a colony cut out of a house soffit in Jim Thorpe, PA. I find it important to note that these new queens swarmed prodigiously in 2019. "Despite our best efforts, only 11 PA colonies did not swarm. That means that only about 10% of the colonies made it through the season without a brood break."
My comment: Feral bees have "reverted" to wild type, and swarm at the drop of a hat. This confers "fitness", swarming making up for the huge losses suffered by mite-ridden bees. It, however, complicates domestic management.
The source has been named for the start bolth by comb and the 1st post of this thread the problem is they weren't "started" with the stock, it was plugged in the fall
He reported that Purdue's stock got watered down so much they had to get stock from a participant breeder to maintain the line.
There are several possibilities:
VSH bees open all cells containing mites (detected by sense of smell, sick bee odor, or whatever) and then they after opening the cell discover, again by their sense of smell ("reproducing mite smell is missing!"), that this mite is not reproducing, so the bees close the cell and leave the mite and pupa alone.
Or just as well VSH could do it this way:
- they open all cells with mites (sick bee odor)
- if the hive is a 100% VSH bee then just opening the cell influences the mites(some chemical coming from the bees) in such a way they don´t make offspring
- 50% VSH bee can do this trick to half of the mites
The problem with this study is that it treats chemical free as a single entity. We already know the Asian bees keep their brood nest temperature higher than European bees do, so the genetic work must include selecting for higher brooding temperatures. One chemical free segment uses this to increase the hive temperatures to above 40C for 2.5 hours thereby killing or rendering infertile all the hive mites. This group is not included in the study, which is unfortunate.
"if the hive is a 100% VSH bee then just opening the cell influences the mites(some chemical coming from the bees) in such a way they don´t make offspring"
Not really as far out there as my first take impression. In the history of insect chemical warfare it is unlikely the honeybee has not encountered other mites. A hold over ability to sterilize your enemy makes total sense.
Which highlights that mating process is both boon and bane of breeding honeybees. The advantages of multiple mating with a diverse group of drones is easily shown. The disadvantage is that concentrating small effect genes is very difficult.
Agenda: Topic 1: The COMB Project: Conventional and Organic Management of Bees, Dr Robyn Underwood Topic 2: WAS Annual AGM - Business Meeting Speaker Bio: Dr. Robyn Underwood was born and raised in Pennsylvania. She studied Entomology and Applied Ecology for her BSc from the University of...
Thanks for posting. Will be interesting to hear what she has to say on the topic. She didn't respond to my query about formic brood brushing as something to be studied even though I know she prefers organic methods of control.
Dr. Underwood updated the COMB research and said the paper written on the project has been submitted which frees her to show more of the data.
1) One (out of an intial 96) "Treatment Free" colonies survived to the third year. (Survival average 27% year over year).
2) Survival of the Amitraz treated colonies and the "Organic" (ie Formic/Oxalic/Thymol) was nearly identical (Survival of >75% year over year with splits allowing rebuilding on colony stocks).
3) Dr. Underwood announced a new four year grant that will intensivive study "organic" Varroa methods (ie Formic/Oxalic/Thymol, Drone brood removal etc) with the intention of updating US "organic" certification guidelines --- and unlocking the economic benefits of certificated "organic" labeling of US honey and beekeeping.
4) Dr Underwood noted that "treatment free" beekeeping will categorically fail to be "organically certified" becasue it violates ethical standards for keeping live animals safe from avoidable death.
In short, the "Death Cult" of Treatment free beekeeping cannot and will not ever be considered "organic".
Dr. Underwood updated the COMB research and said the paper written on the project has been submitted which frees her to show more of the data.
1) One (out of an intial 96) "Treatment Free" colonies survived to the third year. (Survival average 27% year over year).
2) Survival of the Amitraz treated colonies and the "Organic" (ie Formic/Oxalic/Thymol) was nearly identical (Survival of >75% year over year with splits allowing rebuilding on colony stocks).
3) Dr. Underwood announced a new four year grant that will intensivive study "organic" Varroa methods (ie Formic/Oxalic/Thymol, Drone brood removal etc) with the intention of updating US "organic" certification guidelines --- and unlocking the economic benefits of certificated "organic" labeling of US honey and beekeeping.
4) Dr Underwood noted that "treatment free" beekeeping will categorically fail to be "organically certified" becasue it violates ethical standards for keeping live animals safe from avoidable death.
JWChestnut, I believe you should also show her 3 categories in the study to better define the graphs. All 3 Management types were requeened the first year with mated sister queens from an apiary in NY.
Dr. Underwood's new grant will track foragers with radar, and time enter and exits for foragers using a bar-code technology, as well as other research. This seeks to corroborate previous findings that given a suitable forage source, the foraging radius of colonies is about 0.7 kilometers. The implication of the reduced de facto foraging radius is that the "3 mile organic crops only" requirement for organic honey certification is overly restrictive, and apiaries inside small "organic" zones should be able to acquire the coveted "organic" certification.
Dr. Underwood's data on Varroa abundance in her three treatment systems is instructive. It illustrates 1) the relative "halcyon" year that new colonies, whatever their management, experience. 2) Illustrates the likelyhood of "treatment free" mite crashes that follow in the 2nd year.
well that is an out dated management graphitic, as they did much more treatment is year 2-3 then the package year (presumably do the brood less dribble onthe packages seting the mites back) the JW provided a link to the newer one in the 1st post along with some important information about the queens
In the fall of 2018 all colonies in the project were requeened with "feral, TF survivors" from a colony cut out of a house soffit in Jim Thorpe, PA. I find it important to note that these new queens swarmed prodigiously in 2019. "Despite our best efforts, only 11 PA colonies did not swarm. That means that only about 10% of the colonies made it through the season without a brood break."
This table really bothers me from a scientific standpoint. There are way to many different variables between the hives. Put all 3 sets of hives in the same hive configuration (cover, bottom board). I can sort of see the value of a different comb size, but that is another variable. Also go with the same winter feeding method instead of 2 (or 3) different methods. I am also not sure if treating 3 times a year, with overlapping methods and treatments is masking the effectiveness of a single treatment not working well. Is the spring treatment going really well so the effectiveness of the summer one is hidden, or something similar. When you are running a good science experiment you want to minimize (to ideally 1) variable that you change at a time instead of changing everything at once.
I did not attend the webinar, or find her paper, but this is what that I am seeing with the above table.
That was not a bad project. Nothing she spoke of was earth shattering, but she did reinforce alot of points that where heretofore questionable. I wonder why she could not make a normal honey crop with packages on foundation the first year???
We do so with consistency.
Only thing she said that I struggled with is she said that EFB is a nutritional disease which can be cured by increasing the ratio of nurse bees to larvae so the larvae will be fed better.
Maybe true, don't know, would be interested to hear others speak to that.
A comment on the comparison between the organic treated hives and the conventional treated hives, because of the fact that both groups were treated as required once mite numbers reached a threshold, logic would dictate there would not be much difference between the 2 groups, and there wasn't. the only difference is the one that wasn't mentioned, the time and expense needed to achieve the result.
One good thing about this study is they followed each hive as an individual and did not make up losses by splitting. Well, they did, but the splits were not included in the study. A more honest and reliable approach than some work been done in the past.
my understand that is yes... but only to a point, if you look at how "old" efb was treated
it went away with the flow...ie hive scaled back brood rearing and the nurse to lava ratio increased
shook swarming on to foundation does the same thing....changes the nurse to brood ratio.. all of a sunder a lot of nurses and little brood
requeening... again shifts the nurce to brood ratio do to the induced brood break
I thought about that too, Oldtimer, and wrote it off as just being one of the important factors, not the sole cause. Time will tell as more research is done. It was never a problem here.
I've run my own experiment since 2005. My bees are alive and thriving. Swarms from my bees in the local area are thriving, I catch several per year. But you don't make much honey from a hive that swarms so I guess maybe a good question to ask is how come I produce a crop of honey? It could have something to do with making a spring split from any colonies strong enough to swarm before the flow. That is usually half to 3/4 of my colonies.
All that split making and swarm collecting masks losses.
That was the good thing about the Pen State Comb Project is they did not do that, they just followed the original hive, which tells the real story. 3 years down the track and only one CF hive still alive.
True that Oldtimer. Do we know if that one surviving hive still had' it's original Queen? If all of the original queens where sisters from a queen that was treatment free for ???? years (was it 3+ ???), . I would like to know why more did NOT survive. Will we hear the usual, "They requeened with "bad drones", or "mite drift" ???
Keep in mind Roland, that with 18-30 baby daddies the sisters may not have been full sisters, and then the sisters each had 18-30 drones, and they may have had different mixes of patra lines in each hive.
one worked, hard to open mate sisters that are exact copies of each other.
ya one would expect sisters to do similar.
GG
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