On Tue, 2006-10-31 at 19:47 -0500, J. Waggle wrote: > Now you have a tool that can help identify desired traits, and may help in > the selection process, instead of a bunch of numbers and slapping in > treatments. My colleague Rodger Dewurst, a co-founder with me of the Cornwall Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Group, has been doing this for a couple of seasons now and has presented his findings to SICAMM Conference in Versailles and our work together in BKQ. He has shown that you can select these different behaviours for a breeding programme relying on open mating (our bees do Apiary Vicinity Mating in poorer weather) and improve the stock steadily. I have observed the chewing increase dramatically after selection in both magnitude in individual colonies and across an increased number of colonies. He has been selecting for bees that bite the beekeeper by tugging at his skin (I have seen this too increase using a different selection scheme) and finds that the amount of grooming and damage to mites increases in the subsequent generations. He has separated out the damage to mature adult, immature adult, and immature young mites of all ages and found differences between colonies and the proportions of the different aged mites damaged between colonies. He has also been using a "compression test", before and after removing supers, compressing the colony down to the (usually) single brood chamber and in some colonies this increases the damage rate to above the 60% figure Wallner found led to varroa tolerance. He argues that our weather patterns here in West Cornwall will often produce "compression" which may account for intermittent increases in damage, but also night will increase congestion and the likelihood of grooming. He has also observed, as have many on this list, social grooming dances and auto-grooming, where a bee removes a mite itself from its back using its hind legs and others then take the mite away after a "shiver dance". Like others, I believe the chewing, which is first observable in a "pepperpot pattern" of brood in the spring, is an attempt by the bees to get at varroa in a pupa which is showing the adults that it is distressed but cannot get to it without removing the pupa bit by bit. The evidence on the varroa tray shows antennae, legs and pupal cases as well as bits of body. This can, as Joe said, be correlated with the brood comb as long as you look at the tray and note where the evidence lies. In some cases, you see clusters of pupal bits and immature young mites, up to the stage you expect at the purple eye stage (around when the chewing takes place) but no immature adults, only mature ones. This implies the action is taking place in the chewed out cells and not as the bees emerge when you see the chewing out in progress or empty cells immediately above the debris. We argue that the bees' defence against small invaders is their mandibles, which I believe have 2 main components: the tips, which cause indents in the varroa's carapace and the sides. which have a scissor like action, sometimes cutting right through the mite. In 2001 I posted a question about bees biting the beekeeper and Aaron and Mike replied, but no-one said they bred bees with this character. Rodger has been doing this since soon after we found varroa in our bees in around 1996 and it is a great surprise to visitors, many of whom normally use gloves to inspect hives. Additionally, the hygienic behaviour, which includes removing adult bees as they emerge, attacking and removing wax moth larvae, bee larvae and pupae, chalk brood and so on, is much more easily observed with no smoke or very little. In the UK, we tend not to replace queens in the spring so we rely on 7-10 day inspections to deal with potential swarming and can observe such behaviour and patterns of mite fall and related debris on the tray. Incidentally, Rodger deals with nest expansion by removing sealed brood to above the queen excluder and replacing the comb with foundation both to assist the rate of laying and the total population of bees, and maintain clean comb, which makes observations on the tray much easier as it reduces other debris. A bit more intensive than using a second box, but it works for him, given his interest in the measurements he is making. As you say, work in progress. I shall be amending the page below with some of Rodger's pictures which he was holding back for the published papers. My thanks to all who have reported on chewing pupae in the past. It became starkly apparent this season. james kilty http://www.kilty.demon.co.uk/beekeeping/improvement.htm -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---