[log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Unless you are already doing it, I'd set-up my mating nucs with
>virgins in this location.  

Hello Waldemar!

That’s in my plans to place mating nucs in woodlands and areas where I 
find traits of interest.  I have a few out already, but need to do more.

From what you describe, these may be the
>*best* bees in the US since they grooming for varroa.  

There are excellent breeders in the US producing excellent bees.  I’m not 
making claims that these bees are as good, or better than any other well 
bred bees.   But, because varroa pressure remains low in these colonies, 
and brood patterns are very nice, honey production is good, and they 
thrive without any treatments.  Perhaps, there are fundamental traits in 
place that will be valuable for breeders OR myself to select from to 
produce a very good bee.  Brother Adam went off to Africa, NOT to find the 
best bees, but to find the traits that would be useful in his breeding, 
and this is basically what I am attempting to do here with the local 
ferals by gathering bees and assessing for traits of interest.

Also, I have yet to prove that the grooming trait is effective or not 
against varroa.  Low varroa counts, surviving without treatments and 
ability to produce honey seem to suggest something is suppressing mites in 
these colonies, but I have yet to prove any mode of action.   

A snip from a research manuscript reported
(name dropping, dropped here) ;)
 “Allogrooming never dislodged a mite.”

So this is my project for the year to study the behavior to see this 
particular behavior will dislodge mites.  It would be great if the event 
should occur, and I could get it on video.

What kind of
>honey crops have you gotten from these bees?

A few seasons ago I noticed a great increase in brood viability and 
largeness of patterns occurring.  I don’t know why the viability increased 
in all my colonies from not so good to the very high 90’s, in practically 
a single season.  But I’m assuming the strong rebound of the feral 
population in my area has assisted in better mating.  The last two years I 
noticed the colonies being stronger, and crops have increased as a result 
of better queen performance.  For me to quote numbers and crop results on 
these lists tends not to be accepted well.  So all I will say is that this 
line outperformed my other colonies and did much better than what the 
average is for my area. 

>Would you consider selling some of this stock?

At this time, all I am mainly interested in is testing and experimenting 
with this line of bees.  My love in beekeeping is observing and evaluating 
traits found in the feral population,  and this is where my focus is.  I 
want to do observations on the grooming behavior this season before 
deciding to enter any breeding program.  If I can manage to quantify 
allogrooming as the reason for the mite suppression in these colonies, 
then I may consider selling stock.  But without finding the actual mode of 
resistance, all I have is something that is not a great selling 
point;  “mite resistant stock with a funny looking grooming behavior that 
may or may not be the mode of action suppressing varroa.” ;)

>I'd be interested to know if this woodland population is steadily
>expanding.  Do you have any way of gauging that?

The immediate area of woodlands where I assess my swarms had been lagging 
behind the feral recovery till about 2 years ago.  The first areas I 
noticed to recover were in more prime bee habitats which have abundance 
of ‘large voids‘ and tended to be located in remote farmlands to the West, 
and old growth forests to the East of my location.  

The best way that I know of to gauge the population of ferals is to set up 
several feeding stations to triangulate the positions of feral nests, then 
each year repeating the process.  I tried it in my immediate area and In 
the past it was quite boring at the feeding stations with rarely a bee 
visiting.  But last season, feeding frenzy’s occurred at all stations 
making the process much more exciting.  And by using triangulation, there 
is a possible 5 feral colonies in my immediate area. 

Best Wishes,
Joe 
Feralbeeproject.com   

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