james kilty wrote:
>My colleague Rodger Dewurst, ,,, has shown that you can
>select these different behaviours for a breeding programme relying on
>open mating (our bees do Apiary Vicinity Mating in poorer weather) and
>improve the stock steadily. 

Hello James,

When you look at the research being conducted on the honeybee genome.  One 
thing that I find fascinating is that compared with other insects, 
honeybees have only one-third as many genes involved in recognizing and 
killing their microbial enemies. This is interesting considering a 
honeybee spends more than 95 percent of its life in a crowded, moist 94-
degree indoor environment hospitable to bacteria and parasites.   
Scientist believe honeybees have no need for many immune system genes 
because they have evolved specialized traits in place of them.  This 
illustrates just how very important it is for the beekeeper to select for 
traits essential for the health of the colony.

I have had success in selecting behaviors that are showing up in daughter 
colonies.  I was specifically selecting for grooming abilities after 
seeing how very intense grooming is in some feral lines.  Wing power is 
another trait I have observed in some woodland ferals that is much more 
apparent during the initial 18 weeks of colony growth.  This trait seems a 
bit tricky to select because I can easily identify which ferals forage 
further distances when I place them in a poor forage location for 
assessments.  But when these colonies are  moved to my apiaries in the 
farmland where nearby forage is very abundant, these lines tend to perform 
about the same, maybe only a bit better during the flow, but during the 
summer dearth, they do much better it seems because of the ability to 
forage a greater distance for meager forage. 

He argues
>that our weather patterns here in West Cornwall will often produce
>"compression" which may account for intermittent increases in damage,
>but also night will increase congestion and the likelihood of grooming.

This is interesting that you have observed this.   I have seen this 
increase of grooming at certain times.  Grooming seems most prevalent in 
my colonies during what I describe as ‘down time’ in the morning hours 
before flights begin in earnest, mostly during warm mornings on the 
landing boards, bees can be seen passing the time grooming.  Compression 
is an interesting term to describe it, but perhaps grooming is a chore 
that is initiated mostly during down time, when the nectar drying and 
other chores are finished.   

>He has also observed, as have many on this list, social grooming dances
>and auto-grooming, 

I’m seeing very little auto-grooming in my bees.  But what I am seeing is 
a very intense propensity for allo-grooming.  On some mornings,  allo-
grooming can be so intense on the landing boards, it can occasionally look 
like a robbing event.  I have seen hundreds of bees so evolved in social 
grooming, and often grooming bees will be so involved they will fall off 
the landing board to the ground, then fly back up to the landing board.  
During these early morning hours there will be intence grooming and bee 
activity on the entrance, but not a bee will be found flying, indicating 
it is not a robbing event.
  
>where a bee removes a mite itself from its back using
>its hind legs and others then take the mite away after a "shiver dance".

I have heard many describe this dance,  but I’m not seeing this particular 
grooming solicitation as many describe.  What I have seen can only be 
described as a ’freeze dance’.  The bee will hunch it’s back and freeze, 
and immediately, 1 or 3 bees will begin to vigorously groom her.  

>Like others, I believe the chewing, which is first observable in a
>"pepperpot pattern" of brood in the spring, is an attempt by the bees to
>get at varroa in a pupa which is showing the adults that it is
>distressed but cannot get to it without removing the pupa bit by bit.

What perplexes me about chewing down is that there seems to be two 
separate behavioral components at play.  The bees will uncap the cell to 
reveal the pupa in the purple eyed stage.  BUT, they often choose to allow 
the cell to remain uncapped for several days before chewing down the 
pupa.  Because the pupa is allowed to remain undamaged in the cell after 
the cell is uncapped, wouldn’t you assume from this that the pupa is alive 
and well?,,, and the cause for uncapping not pupa distress?  And because 
the bees do not immediately chew down the pupa to get the varroa after 
uncapping, wouldn’t you assume from this that the bees are not after the 
varroa?,,, because if they were uncapping due to varroa, wouldn’t you 
expect them to rapidly continue chewing down the pupa immediately after 
uncapping the cell to get to the varroa?

So my question is, what is the trigger to uncap the cell,  and what is the 
separate trigger that causes the bees to begin chewing down the pupa a day 
or two later?  

Joe Waggle 
Ecologicalbeekeeping.com 
‘Bees Gone Wild Apiaries' 
Feral Bee Project:
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FeralBeeProject/

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