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    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Default Apis mellifera mellifera does it better

    Interesting paper mentioned on the IBRA Facebook page today.

    Years ago I spent a summer visiting a non-treater in Stirlingshire who had local Amm and Buckfast lines surviving Varroa for many years (5 by the time we lost touch, I hear he has withdrawn from beekeeping due to ill health). Dennis Anderson came to see them at one point. It seemed to me that his Buckfast-leaning lines were hygienic (good at clearing out infested brood) but when taken back to my apiary they didn't control Varroa well. His darker stocks seemed a lot better at keeping mites down and grooming and biting seemed to be a part of that. Anyway, read on ....

    https://www.facebook.com/IBRAssociat...type=3&theater

    Carnie, Caucasians, dark natives and carnie x capensis hybrids - Amm was the best at grooming.

    The researchers found that most worker bees do not tolerate the mite on their bodies. The most intense reaction was observed in A. m. mellifera worker bees, with as many as 98% of worker bees in this group making an attempt to remove mites. The different lines varied greatly in their abilities to remove mites. In most trials, worker bees showed at least three different defensive reactions, and the authors concluded that A. m. mellifera shows the strongest grooming behaviour of all bees used in the experiment.

    The full paper: “Grooming behaviour by worker bees of various subspecies of honey bees to remove Varroa destructor mites” by Beata Bąk and Jerzy Wilde (sadly not free to view) can be found here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2016.1147791

    Last edited by gavin; 15-04-2016 at 09:48 PM.

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