Bob Harrison Said:

Was the selection based on the lowest mite
drop maybe not the best way to find the best varroa tolerant bee as
suggested by researchers at the ABF Reno convention AND by Dee Lusby?

Answer:

Hello Bob, I was the research scientist who reported about varroa
tolerance of Russian bees at the ABF. Although I reported in details only
one trait; the mite drop in 24 h, my student Geoff Wilson studied several
traits. The presentation was short, 15 min including discussion.
Therefore, I had to give only high lights of the results. I used the mite
drop in 24 h because this trait has significant correlation with total
number of mites on bees, mites in brood and total mites in a washed sample
of 300 bees.

In fact Geoff looked at several traits; Russian bee population dynamics,
Varroa population dynamics, mite growth rates, mite infestation in brood
vs mites on bees, hygienic, grooming, post capping period, and slow mite
reproduction. He also looked at honey production, tracheal mite
resistance, wintering and percentage of acceptance of introduced queens.
These traits were studied in Pure Russian bees, Ontario Mite resistant
bees, hybrids of Russian queens mated with Ontario drones and Ontario
queens mated with Russian drones.  The Ontario bees used in this study was
that bees developed by me for 6 years when I was in Ontario. An abstract
of the results will be published in the American Bee Journal as part of
American Bee Conference report.

medhat

Medhat Nasr, Ph. D.
Provincial Apiculturist
Crop Diversification Centre North

17507 Fort Road
Edmonton, AB, Canada T5Y 6H3
Tel: (780) 415-2314    Fax: (780) 422-6096
Mailto:[log in to unmask]

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