Carl mentions VSH and I'm not sure if you can obtain any this spring but the excerpt below from
Glenn Apiaries has a link worth pursing (from the Glenn Apiary website).
http://members.aol.com/queenb95/smr.html
I am intruiged by the concept that the offspring from the PURE breeder queens are too hygienic to
maintain colony health and that these breeders developed by Harbo and Harris are intended to be
open mated with any mutt drone in order to get the right level of hygienic behaior.
IMO another great tool for those who want to experiment with producing their own mite resistant
queens. i have one on order for this spring to join the ranks of Purvis and pure russian strains I'm
evaluating for my own uses as we seek to gut our operation of run of the mill queens that need a
crutch to survive. For now I favor the pure Russian strain for my location and style of keeping
bees but have not spent enough time with all of these bees to determine what's best for me. .
Excerpt from Glenn Apiaries
Who should buy pure VSH/SMR breeder queens?
" Pure VSH/SMR breeder queens should be used for queen rearing purposes. The best way to get
the maximum amount of the trait into a line of bees is to begin with a pure VSH/SMR breeder
queen so her daughters mate with your local drones. Workers from pure VSH/SMR queens have a
hyper-hygienic behavior where their workers remove more brood than is necessary or desirable.
This will show up as a deterioration of the breeder's brood pattern after about six weeks. The
regular addition of frames of sealed brood from other colonies will keep the colony strong.
Daughters queens of pure VSH/SMR breeders who are out crossed by natural mating have good
brood production and an acceptable level of mite resistance. The naturally mated daughters of
these breeder queens should be used for production hives. Naturally mated queens containing
50% of the VSH/SMR trait can be purchased from various queen producers" link follows on
website.
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