Well, I'm back home finally, after the ABF meeting in Jacksonville.  I
missed the Texas meeting, but would have like to have made that one too.  I
understand that Charlie was a speaker there, so maybe he can mention a few
high points.

As always the ABF meeting was excellent, with more sessions that any one
person could take in and a vast display area with vendors offering familiar
equipment, as well as some things we'd never seen before.

Off the top of my head, I'll mention a few things that stick in my mind.

Tom Rindererer explained that the Russian bee project is over, and that they
are now into a selection project, sifting and sorting through the genetic
material that they imported previously.  The quarantine location remains
available and can be used in the future.

He stated that they had thrown out more of the lines that did not make the
cut, and have simplified the descriptions.  They continue to select and
breed.

The most important message, to my ears,was that the Russian stock today is
not what it was last year, and what it was last year is not what it was the
year before.  Buyers need to obtain stock from breeders that stay up to date
and have a variety of current stock.  Using only a few breeders or the same
breeder in successive years will result in bees that are not representative
of the Russian project.  Although he did not specifically say so, I deduced
from his comments that we need to be selective in what we believe, since
many of the reports we hear about the Russians are from people with impure
or old stock from doubtful sources, or who only have an unrepresentative
sample.

John Harbo spoke about his work and showed a list of traits that they
consider to have greater and less potential for varroa tolerance.  The list
went from almost 100% heritable traits to traits that were almost totally
non-heritable.  I did not take notes, but, from memory, recall that the
percentage of mites on bees P-MIB was something like .89 and SMR was .46,
while low mite counts was -- if I remember right -- at the bottom at .1(?)
That has very significant meaning for those trying to select bees for varroa
tolerance by counting mites.  My understanding is that P-MIB appears most
promising and is a target for ongoing work.

P-MIB (inverse of phoresy) refers to the ratio of varroa that are found in
brood vs. the number on adult bees at any given time.  The normal number
discussed was in the vicinity of 66% in brood.  With such a high percentage
in the brood, protected and reproducing, mites quickly build up, however, in
some colonies, due to some property of the bees, the number can be half that
or less.  In such colonies, the mite reproduction rate is much lower, and,
since the mites are most vulnerable to accidents when phoretic, the
attrition rate is higher as well.  As a result, hives with low P-MIB will
have much lower mite build-up rates and possibly be able to manage varroa
without assistance.  Since the trait is highly heritable, breeding for it
may prove worthwhile.  The work is still in the early stages, and, so far,
my understanding is that it is not known whether the trait is associated
with any undesirable characteristics.

A screened bottom board from Quebec was on sale in the display area.
Alexandre Cote, an associate of Jean Pierre Chapleau was offering their
design for sale.  It is nicely made, has a screen and drawer that slides
left and right.  They used it last year to treat varroa and tracheal by
placing a paper towel in the drawer and squirting formic onto it.  I
understand they did this three times and lost only 4% over winter.  This
past winter, many beekeepers in Quebec lost anywhere from 50 to 100% and
blamed it on resistant mites, so their relative success appears significant.
Of course, Jean Pierre is a very good beekeeper and queen breeder, and that
factors into the success as well.  His site is at
http://www.reineschapleau.wd1.net/

Of course there was much more, but these are the first items to come to
mind.  I'll likely write more later, here or in my diary, as time permits.
Hopefully others will add their comments and recollections, although I did
not meet as many BEE-L people there as sometimes.

allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/

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