Rüdiger Dietrich’s comment is so good I made it into a post of its own as well. Thanks Rüdiger! As a German I have of course to answer to Eriks contribution “Breeding for Varroa resistance: Germany versus USA”…:-). When commenting
Epigenetics, genetics and breeding locally adapted bees
Randy Oliver in Sweden 8 Dec 2013 7-8 December, Randy Oliver California USA, Steve Pernal Canada and Mark Goodwin New Zealand had a workshop on parasites and pathogens, mainly Varroa and American Foulbrood. Mark Goodwin with the help of video
Breeding varroa resistence: Germany versus USA
The other day I received Imkerfreund 12-2013 in my postbox. In this issue of the German bee magazine I found an interview with the scientist leading a varroa breeding project involving beekeepers. It’s a project that has made some progress.
Peter Donovan has moved on
Peter Donovan was the longterm, faithful and skilled coworker with Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey in southwest of England. He came to the abbey 1939 at the age of 12 when the war started and helped Brother Adam in his
Efforts for resistant bees give results
I really work for getting bees that can handel the varroa mite themselves. You get results when you do, but it’s extra work and sometimes it’s difficult to interpret what you see. And you loose some bad bees. And some
Searching for resistant bees
Kenya I started long before the mite arrived to focus on increasing the varroa resistance in my stock. 1989 I went to the mountains of Kenya to get genetic material that were more related to the resistant bees in South
Towards treatmentfree beekeeping
Why treatmentfree bees when you are not treatmentfree yourself? Every stressfactor put burdon upon the bees and lower the immune system. You can’t hinder the farmer from using pesticides, but you can stop yourself. If you manage to do that,
My VSH-test number 2
VSH – Varroa Sensitive Hygiene – is a very valuable trait and VSH-test is a very valuable way of finding out if a colony is an eventual breeder colony. You can read about that and my first VSH-test here: http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=154
We all know we need resistant bees
I love Inner Cover in Bee Culture. Almost like with poems Kim Flottum is firing up our minds with right on the spot insights and humor. Why is it so much money in funding for finding in detail why our
My first VSH-test
As I wrote in my previous post I did my first test with a good result. I was somewhat surprised. It seems also this colony I tested is my best one. A little embarrassing as I’ve been breeding and selecting