[BGhoney]

I picked up some queen cells the other day from a commercial bee keeper. The are Varrora Resistant queens cells. I asked about once they mated with drones if they could lose the varrora resistant part. He told me as far as he knew the mite resistants was a queen gene and not a drone and my queens would be as " mite resistant " as the strain.

I had never heard that before, I've only read a couple of books on queen rearing and didn't pick that one up. If thats true does anyone know a source where I could find out what queens had what strains. And even what where the different "Master" drone genes.

I've read of eye color coming from the queen but thats about it.

I always assumed that most genes where split 50/50

Thanks for any help

 

[Velbert]

If you were to raise queens from them the queen raised will bee mite resistant but when they mate with non resistance it is 50/50 from their workers.

LET ME REPHRASE (the queens from your bought q cell will have the resistance but when she mates her bees will have her mite resistance plus what ever the drones she mates with IF THEY DO NOT HAVE ANY MITE RESTANCE THEN at there best it is only 50/50 but if some of drones had some resistance it will be a little higher

now if you have mite resistance drones for them to mate with then you are in good shape

 

[BGhoney]

So these queen from these cells have the full mite resistance after 1 mating. There offspring would have full resistance for 1 mating and then it will go down. I might have to draw a graph. Another whole layer to study.

 

[bjerm2]

It's not as easy as 50-50 chance. Queens mate with up to 20 drones. To find out more please take a look at this site and I hope that it explains it better for you. As stated before if you have mite resistant drones than you should be ok.

http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/genetics.html

Hope this helps
Dan

 

[MichelinMan]

Varroa resistant QC? I'd scratch my head on that one. If only things were that simple then varroa would not be the problem it is. Sounds more like a sale's pitch to me.

Certainly some queens make offspring that can handle mites better than others. And we want to reproduce those traits. But to say someone has varroa resistant queen cells . I dunno. Do they come with a pedigree or something?

 

[BGhoney]

Great Pics of your bee yard ! I've been to glenns web site before but forgot about it. Thats alot of info, kinda hard to follow but I see how a domainate queen trait can stick with a line.

I dont think my friends line about Varrora mite resistant queens in the cell was a sales pitch because he gave me all the cells. I ordered a couple of B-Weaver queens to add to my mite resistance around here, they should be delivered today. I'll get more mite resistant drones flying around here for others at least.

My number 1 IPM move around here is requeening in the fall . I had less than 10% winter die out last year, I requeened everything in August.