I know it can be beneficial to count mites. But I don’t have the time. But those colonies I check for VSH, they will get figures enough to get the infection rate for mites in brood. (But I just check
Sharing varroa mites
Mites spread easily to other bee colonies. Sometimes though this seems not to be of great importance when designing tests or setting up areas for developing mite resistant bees. Sometimes one can wonder why ’control colonies’ in tests are placed
Killer factor alone is not enough
Progress is accomplished by people devoted to find solutions to problems and make life easier for all of us. When people are dedicated for a task, we should be grateful and try to help if possible. Sometimes though it may
Europe versus USA: breeding varroa resistence
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
VSH is active on drone brood as well
In my former post I wrote: “When I first read that bees don’t uncap and clean out drone pupae, as they do of different reasons with worker pupae, I was a little bit surprised as I saw it ‘all the
Dragging out drone pupae
When I first read that bees don’t uncap and clean out drone pupae, as they do of different reasons with worker pupae, I was a little bit surprised as I saw it ‘all the time’. Then I read it another
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
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
The art of beekeeping
Hive of eccentricbeekeeper.com Foundationless Of course it’s more natural for bees to build their own combs. But is it the best for bees and beekeepers? There’s been a lot of discussion about natural beekeeping. First let us be clear. Natural
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