I was thinking about doing the stacked bar graph thing again
It shows the whole apiary as a sort of single entity
I was thinking about doing the stacked bar graph thing again
It shows the whole apiary as a sort of single entity
This year was a low mite count year for a lot of beekeepers I know, probably due to the exceptionally long brood break last winter and spring.
My bees were rearing brood until the end of October this year and some likely still have a bit of brood so mite levels will have risen a lot since September.
That drop of 800 mites shocked me as this was a colony which had a negligible mite load when I treated in June.
I suppose 100 mites early September could have grown to a population of 800 after 3 generations of brood up to November
here's a link http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/pub..._NO_115=161315
These guys were trying to measure effect of crossing with Russian bees
A difference of 58% in capped cells to 48% in capped cells it seems ?
This thread just came to mind while reading Erik Osterlund's latest blog. I'm going to link it as there's a great diy shaker jar tutorial for those who like to play around in the workshop:
http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=660
Whateverway you do it, using a shaker with a measured amount of bees is the only accurate way to get a mite count.
Fera is still promoting the counting of mites which drop through the mesh floor.
The project is underway. I had a letter from the PHD student doing the work last week.
I hope to get an update on the NIHBS site soon.
Still very early days.
Not seen the actual paper yet but this news feed looks quite interesting:
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=...5&e=57f94334d8
edit: this is the link to the paper (link added after busybeephillip's post #109):“The study is a unique and powerful contribution to understanding how honeybees have been impacted by the introduction of Varroa destructor, and how, if left alone, they can evolve resistance to this deadly parasite,” said Thomas Seeley, the Horace White Professor in Biology at Cornell and the paper’s senior author. Sasha Mikheyev ’00, an assistant professor of ecology and evolution at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan, is the paper’s first author.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/15...comms8991.html
Last edited by prakel; 11-08-2015 at 01:37 PM.
I wonder how they take account of bees breeding with the like of sue cobeys varroa resistant strains since they only seem to be looking at mito DNA and not genomic
Not sure about the "if left alone ......resistance" bit
That's not what I felt they were trying to say
More a loss of genetic diversity among survivors
I thought all the CCD losses were made up by package bees probably from a few sources
Possibly Australian ?
They have tried to eliminate other reasons in fairness but with bees that's not easy
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