Frank Wyatt wrote:

>"Would it not be great to hive a swarm that you were called to pick up and
>be fairly certain that it has some SMR and Hygienic traits, because every
>hobbyist and beekeeper in the area, has purchased queens with these traits."
>
>
This goal is beginning  to be realized  in my part of the Western
Piedmont of South Carolina.   We are relatively isolated, no interstates
and only a few commercially pollinated orchards over 20 miles away.
Feral bees mostly died out in the mid 1990s.  Thanks to my late friend
Paul LeRoy, a long-time beekeeper and mentor to as many people as he
could find, we have an association of hobby and sideline beekeepers who
are oriented to using disease resistant bees.   For 7 years I have used
no treatment except screened bottom boards, some drone removal, mineral
oil/beeswax coatings inside the hive bodies, and {except for the last 2
years) formic acid and essential oils.  I have sucrose octoanate and
Api-life VAR available, but haven't needed them yet. I open-feed syrup
and pollen substitute in winter (when we have flying weather more days
than not). Every time I open a hive I pipe a paste of pollen substitute,
syrup and vegetable oil onto the bars.  I've only had between 20 and 50
hives most of the time.  Each year I've lost fewer hives to mites or
other disease.  Poorly mated queens in outyards and from late
supercedures have been my biggest problems.  Winter survival has been
90% or better.  Hives showing severe mite or mite-disease damage
(usually August-Sept) don't get to reproduce. Every year our beekeeping
club has brought in queens from various sources of  hygienic, SMR,
Russian, etc. stock, tho only the poorest queens are replaced.  Good
older queens are reserved in nucs for weak hives, queenless hives, or
future spring swarm increases.  I have sought to bring in maximum
genetic diversity as far as sources, races, and strains.  I allow my
strongest spring hives to stay a little crowded and make swarm cell
splits for increases and replacement queens for myself and others during
optimal drone season.The apparently dominant Russian characteristic of
keeping viable queen cells handy makes splits possible whenever drones
are available. Hives are near the house and queens are clipped (and of
course marked), so few swarms get away unnoticed.  We collect the
increasing numbers of feral hives and swarms and add them to our genetic
soup.  Some outyard queens are mated wild and stay in the pot if they
meet my primary criteria:  Survival, survival, and gentleness (I prefer
to work without smoke or suit or even hood, since I stay small enough
that slow is OK).  In our last 4 terrible weather years I have harvested
only very lightly,  as I've yet to breed the starvation-resistant bee.
If we can get one or two decent weather years I'll have a better idea of
production, tho at this point it's a tertiary selection criteria.  I am
a wildlife biologist, so I understand a good bit on genetics, behavior,
and population biology, but I am not  using scientific methods here, tho
I do keep notes on each hive and can track the sources of most of my
queens.  My goal of  'assisted evolution' of disease resistant bees, at
least for this area, seems to be working.   Since some of the original
1997 lines of commercial Buckfast and Italian bees, now mongrelized,
have survived without  Apistan, Coumaphos, Terramycin, menthol, or
Fumadil, I believe I'm getting past the "wait 3 years and they'll crash"
point.  Of course there may be a 10-year crash point, and our 5 years of
hot dry weather may have inhibited the mites, tho I expect every year
the percentage of  disease/mite-resistant genes should be increasing.
Now if we just had a big grant and some grad students.....Carolyn in
SC,  Lakelands Beekeepers Association

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