beeman wrote:
> i have a hive that seems to never have any varroa...
> is there anyway of testing the bees to see if they are varroa
resistant??
 
check out the HIP (honeybee improvement program)...
 
From: [log in to unmask]
Newsgroups: sci.agriculture.beekeeping
Subject: Re: isolated hives and mites
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 11:14:19 GMT
 
Suggestion: use resistant stock when it is available.
 
Caveat: unfortunately stock resistant to Varroa is still in developmental
stages here at HIP and elsewhere.  The genetic puzzle on that one has not
really been figured out so we are essentially looking for invisible
needles
in large haystacks.  You can see colonies that are doing what needs doing
-
namely not just surviving but actually thriving for 2 years completely
untreated for either mite IN ANY WAY - however it must be multiple gene
because getting it to pass on reliably has yet to be fully accomplished.
Since 1993 when HIP was started we have made progress however - our test
then
only required a one year untreated phase to clearly point out breeders -
now
it requires a two year untreated phase.  Increasing to a two year
untreated
test does not just double the difficulty - it exponentially increases it
for
several reasons not the least of which is queen longevity (use marked
queens).  In 1993 and 1994 we saw one completely untreated commercial
operation lose 80% each year.  Now in 1999 one of our HIP Cooperators is
reporting 30% loss in his yard of first year untreated stock (with zero
loss
in the acual HIP stock in his 1st year test yard) and 70% loss in his 2
year
Untreated Thriving Survival test yard.  This is against a backdrop
of only 3%
operation wide loss of treated colonies (bulk of each operation is
treated in
HIP program - only test colonies are risked) at this time - but it should
be
noted that it is still early and MUCH winter loss actually occurs in
March
and even April hereabouts though not generally for that particular HIP
Cooperator.  To the point - the hand selected test stock has survived for
two
years untreated better than originally was happening with stock left
untreated just one year.  But we are as yet a good long ways off our HIP
goal
- which is 80+% untreated survival of naturally mated daughters of HIP
Breeder Queens.
 
We could use more help in getting there.
 
If any of you mainland USA folks would like to help - let me know.  Most
of
our Cooperators are in MI but we count Kirk Webster of VT as well as
Steve
Cantu of FL among our HIP Cooperators so difficulties revolving around
distance can be overcome with proper determination and patience.  We
recently
picked up another 5 HIP Cooperators here in MI putting us up to 14
Cooperators now and I think we now break the 10,000 colony mark by a
goodly
margin - so we have more hay to sort through and that means we will find
more
needles to make use of cooperatively.  We use both NM and AI and requeen
mainly with cells.  Last years daughter queens that do well provid this
years
drones out in the field. The more Cooperators in a given area the better
the
odds of getting your stock mated nearly pure with HIP drones - a
community
effort definitely helps and it does make a difference what drones are
used.
 
Also HIP cells can be purchased even by non-Cooperators and that helps
Cooperators fund the effort too.  If you live in MI or FL let me know and
I
can get you the phone number of our main HIP cell producers.
 
Jack Griffes
Country Jack's Honeybee Farm
http://members.tripod.com/~Griffes/
 
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