The Commercial Conundrum

If you're familiar with my work, you know that I am strictly against "magic bullet genetics." One of the things that bugs me about all the so-called research is that they never seem to actually consult those of us that are already doing it. No stock available? Hardly, just not widely accepted by the scientists. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-science or anti-medicine as is admittedly common in this group. But when for instance, I read studies on small cell foundation, I can see almost instantly that these people not only have no idea what they're doing, they obviously hasn't asked for help from anyone who does!

This is a huge point of frustration for many of us in this movement. Bee scientists and commercial beekeepers absolutely refuse to do anything differently. They just apply our methods half heartedly and point and laugh when they fail. Of course they fail! You didn't actually do what we suggest!

I actually have made the point that commercial migratory beekeeping may be impossible due to the fact that bees are fundamentally not meant to move and be exposed to that much disease that often. But commercial stationary honey production absolutely is and there are already a handful, if not dozens doing it.

Breeding bees with specific traits like ankle biters and VSH is ultimately a futile effort. I have been saying for years that the only ultimate solution is to stop treating and let it work itself out. And it does. However, few if any commercial beekeepers can actually let that happen or they go bankrupt. I get that.

We have a major problem with newbees making a mess of things on the forums. But there are a lot of us doing this. And there are parts of this country where almost everybody is TF. The commercial conundrum is something that is going to have to be worked through for many years to come.

Survey of Mites in Capped Brood Cells

So I was out working the bees today and I was removing some deep frames from a medium hive.  The bees had built comb hanging from the bottom of the frames.  It was the only way I had to get a deep nuc into a medium hive last year.

I took the best of the brood comb and tied it into a foundationless frame:

However, a lot of the comb was drone and so out of curiousity I started pulling out the drone brood and counting and separating them by which ones had mites and which didn't.  Then out of more curiosity, I did the same with the last little bit of worker brood there was on a similar piece of comb. 

Here are the results:  Of the drone brood, I uncapped 56 drones, finding 15/56 (27%) infested with at least one varroa, and two with two mites for a total of 17 mites.  Of the worker brood, I uncapped 73 and found 5 infested with a mite (7%) and one having successfully reproduced, showing multiple mites in the cell, in the typical ages of a mite lifecycle in a honeybee cell (1.4%).  I did not find any reproducing mites in the drone cells, but as you can see in the picture above, the drones were all recently capped whereas many of the workers were near emergence.

What does this demonstrate?

First, I have mites.  No surprise there, I have been saying that for years.

Second, I have plenty of mites.  No tiny insignificant population here.  This is not a hive that has demonstrated hygienic traits, yet survives nonetheless.

Third, the mites obviously prefer the drone brood, infesting at a rate of one in four while worker brood was only infested at a rate of one in fourteen.

Fourth, some hives are capable of handling a substantial mite load without crashing or even showing detrimental effects.  This hive is about the fourth strongest in this yard of nine.  I used it as my cell builder this year.

Five, if these numbers hold out, mites are not terribly successful at reproducing in worker brood in this hive, only about 1 in 71 worker cells result in mite reproduction.

And for some background data, I measured the cell size of this piece of nearly perfect free form comb and found the cell size to be a consistent 5.2mm.  The rest of the comb in the hive is 4.9mm wax or 4.95mm plastic.