In message <[log in to unmask]>, Aaron Morris
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>James Kilty <[log in to unmask]> wrote in a submission titled
>Subject: Re: From sci.agriculture.beekeeping:
>
>> The IOW disease turns out to be one of the viruses which are propagated
>> rather well by varroa, I think it is now thought to be the Slow
>> Paralysis Virus which caused it. Acarine may well have been the
>> stimulus.
>
>I'm a bit confused by this. My interpretation is that James is saying that
>IOW disease endemic in Britian in the 1920s may have been vectored by
>acarine but now is believed to be the Slow
>Paralysis Virus (SPV) which is being spread by varroa. Actually, I'm not
>sure what is being said. Perhaps that SPV has always been around, acarine
>vectored the outbreak in the '20s and that varroa is a more efficient vector
>today? James, if you will, please set me straight. I have not read Beowulf
>Cooper's writings.
I cannot remember where I read the report on SPV. I will reread all my BIBBA
articles in "The Bee Breeder".
>Having read some of Brother Adam's writings I thought Britain's bee
>populations were left quite devastated by IOW disease and Brother Adam
>searched Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East for genetic material to
>breed with the survivors. Does Mr. Cooper assert that perhaps things would
>have been better off without Borther Adam's importation of genetic material?
>Admittedly I am not up to snuff on BIBBA's (Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders
>Association) stance on the issue. I think one of their goals is to
>reestablish the native dark bee. Is the intent to "filter out mongrel
>genes" or to select from existing stock the characteristics that are most
>desireable while concentrating towards those attributed to the native dark
>bee? Any enlightenment will be appreciated.
I attach an email from one of our national experts on this with his
permission. I still have in mind a summary of the situation as set out
by Beowulf Cooper and by members of BIBBA in the 3 decades since his
work.
Hello James,
It is easy to make assumptions and come out with statements that are
regarded as facts, so I will give you my thoughts on some of the points
raised, so please do not quote me as these being authorative.
Brother Adam was probably sincere in believing that the I.O.W. disease wiped
out the indigenous population of bees, although when one thinks about it to
make such a statement without a national survey was not really factual. Such
a survey was never done or it would have been published. There was no doubt
it did devastate a large proportion of the bee colonies here in Britain.
Obviously I was not around then, and I can only quote others who were.
Reading back copies of the British Bee Journal for 1925 and 1926 (I have
the bound copies for those years) I find there are letters from beekeepers
who say they have had the same bees from the turn of the century, at no time
did they suffer losses from the disease. As Brother Adam made his statement
prior to 1925 it appears there was not a total wipe out.
It is not nature's way to do this. Rabbits survived their terrible disease,
and the same has occurred with Varroa where no treatment has been given
(Tunisia).
Today there is a viable population of native bees here in Britain, although
I cannot say if these are descendants of the native bee because I have no
means of proving this. I say native in the sense that these have the same
morphological characteristics as the native bee of the 1800's. This has been
proved by examination of bees in the Natural History Museum by Eric Milner
and John Dews who published their findings. Recently the work by Dr. Bo Vest
Pedersen at Copenhagen University has shown that there are bees here in
Britain and Ireland with identical morphometry (correction by James - dna
studies in addition to morphometry) to the Apis mellifera
mellifera bees of Tasmania. As the original Apis mellifera mellifera stocks
of Tasmania came from Britain this seems to indicate that we still have bees
here today similar to those of Britain at the beginning of the last century.
As the native bee of Britain is the same sub-species as the bee of Northern
Europe, and bearing in mind that we had a lot of imports of black bees from
Europe in the early 1920's I cannot see how anyone can be definitive in
making a statement either one way or the other regarding our "native bees".
One can only speculate what Brother Adam could have achieved if he had used
the survivors of the I.O.W. disease. He chose to create a hybrid bee, that
at best is very variable, and at worst is an awful cross-bred bee. Prof.
Ruttner took the opposite view to Brother Adam, that is to go for pure race
bees, pointing out that one can never breed true from hybrids. I started
beekeeping with Buckfast bees, but soon changed to 'native' bees.
There has been a lot of misconceptions about 'native' black bees, one of
which is that they are nasty tempered. This is easily disproved if one sees
pure bred stocks that are not hybrids, for many so called black bees are
hybrids. Today we have the problem of trying to get queens mated within
strain, and our group have travelled vast distances over the last 20 years
to sites which offer some isolation.
If we are to make any worthwhile progress in finding colonies that will give
either partial resistance or total resistance to Varroa, then we will only
do so if we use pure bred stocks so that the resistant characteristics can
be passed on.
Progress is being made in the resistance sphere, we now have stocks that are
damaging over 40% of the Varroa mites naturally dropping through the Varroa
screens. Coupled with that we have identified a few stocks that are 100%
hygienic, that is they will clean out every cell that has larvae damaged by
freezing with liquid nitrogen.
There is no doubt that many beekeepers today are questioning the logic of
importing sub-species of bees that are different to Apis mellifera mellifera
as this just makes the hybridisation problem worse.
We can improve what we have got, it just takes some good beekeeping to do
this. As Adrian Waring told me many years ago, "If you only cull the worst
colonies and re-queen from your best, your bees will improve".
I hope these comments will be of some help.
Albert Knight
BIBBA Groups Secretary
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--
James Kilty
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