> Joe said:
>   >Anybody seeing allogrooming in their bees or have
> comment in this
> behavour?

Here you willl find a Ph.D thesis simpified overview
about varroa tolerance mechanisms evaluation performed
in Mexico on both EHB and local AHB :

http://www.apiservices.com/articles/fr/vandame/index.htm

The allogrooming behaviour described and evaluated is
very similar to Seeley's description. But its
efficiency was not sufficient to explain the tolerance
phenomenon. You may use an on-line translator if you
do not speak French.

> My opinion:
> I believe allogrooming to be one of the most
> important traits to select for
> when searching for the varroa tolerant bee. My
> experience has been the bees
> which are the most hygienic are the bees most likely
> to display
> allogrooming.

This was a very interesting post. May I ask some
further questions ?

1. How do you measure/quantify allogrooming behaviour
to correlate with hygienic test (like nitrogene test).

2. What was the correlation performed ? What were the
numeric data/results ?


> I also believe that bees which can tolerate varroa
> without treatment need a
> couple other traits as well as allogrooming &
> hygienic behavior to survive
> varroa untreated *long term*.

3. My - neophyte - undestanding is that allogrooming
(or grooming in general) will change two parameters :
varroa mean lifespan and varroa lifespan variance
(namely lifespan standard deviation). If you change
those 2 parameters in a varroa population model, what
is the gain ?

4. Subsidiary question : how can one measure/evaluate
varroa lifespan standard deviation ?


> Myself and a couple others have got another
> hypothesis I have never seen
> voiced before which we are finding in our *bees
> which tolerate varroa* but
> will keep to myself until we are sure is a factor.

C'est dommage !

> Many researchers lump allogrooming under the heading
> of Hygienic behavior
> which I suppose is correct in a crude way.

I wonder if it is so. In fact, I doubt it is. It seems
to me grooming change parameters discussed above while
hygienic behaviour change the mean reproductoin rate
which has a different weight in the varroa population
growth model or am I far afield ?

 > 3. the search for the reason certain bees which
> tolerate varroa (which is
> the most complicated and difficult area to prove to
> your peers and perhaps
> will never be found out for sure) are tolerating
> varroa and thriving while
> other lines simply crash after two years untreated.

5. This is the reason of my question abot varroa
population modeling. What are the modeling parameters
of those resistant colonies ? That should help to
understand mechanisms involved, shouldn't it ?

[...] Explaining the result is a
> bigger problem especially
> if the result is from a combination of factors
> *which  need in my opinion to
> be in place for the result to occur*.

6. What are those factors ?

Hervé
the father's reward : playing with his own christmas
toys... and his son's christmas toys !






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