Hello All,
I've just found this list, having been directed to this thread, and wonder
if I could offer the following thoughts. I do so as a largely 'armchair'
beekeeper, but one who has spend a great deal of time thinking and learning
about the issue.
Grant Jackson wrote:
"It sounds to me like we're trying to find the single strain of a universal
bee when every environment and every beekeeper brings a different slate of
skills and temperments to the table.
Why can't our respective wings of the industry (the preservationist and
the commercial guys, the hobbyist and the sideliner) work on a different
strain of the bee that works for their respective niche, under their respective
managerial schemes?"
It seems to me that this is not about finding a strain of bee, but about
adopting a methodology, a management system, that allows the bees to adapt to
the pathogens. Any strain of bee in normal use will quickly become
naturalised to the locality, as the daughter queens mate with local drones. So
importing stronger than local strains is only a part of any solution -
unless we wish to be dependent on a continuous supply of specially bred queens.
There is no need for that at. We can adopt a methodology that continually
improves the tolerance of our own bees to all kinds of pests and diseases,
including varroa. It simply means adopting the key method of health
maintenance used in all other areas of organic husbandry - selective
stock-raising.
In basic organic husbandry it is recognised that sexual reproduction
produces a range of offspring, some of which are better and some worse suited to
the environment. In Nature, natural selection of the fittest eliminates
the weaker bloodlines, and promotes the stronger. In (old fashioned, pre
WW2) bee husbandry, and in every other single field of stock keeping, the
stronger parents are carefully selected to form the next generation. This
mimicks nature, and ensures that those genetic mixes that work well, and only
those, will be used to make the next generation.
This method can be used with any strain of bee to promote varroa
tolerance. It must be done continuously, as a health management system. Just as
racehorse breeders carefully select for best parents, using the races to
establish the best parents, and just as bee breeders select for desirable
features like high productivity and ease of handling, strength against diseases,
or 'health and vigour' must be actively selected for. The more this is
done the better. It is quite easy; you just make a point of identifying and
multiplying your best stocks, and taking out the worst. Gradually your
stock becomes capable of taking care of the mites itself, and after a few
years they are no more than a very minor nuisance.
Our problem comes with treatments, in combination with uncontrolled male
parentage.. As soon as you act to keep alive a faltering colony, you
preserve and send into the next generation genetic combinations that should have
been eliminated. All kinds of treatments thus genetically poison their
local breeding pools.
For that reason, the continuation of commercial operations that
artificially maintain, or import 'dirty' bees (in the sense of unadapted to the local
disease environment) is unfair to those beekeepers who are affected. And
to the local wild populations that belong, if to anyone, to all of us.
And, done on a large scale (as currently happens in most of the 'developed'
world) the result is a permanent state of health crisis. This is
unsustainable, and unnecessary.
From the links page on my website (below) you can find directions to sites
detailing the required management.
Mike
http://www.suttonjoinery.co.uk/CCD/
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