Practical varroa restistance selection for beekeepers

Abstract – John Keefuss - texte en français pas disponible

The "Live and the Die" testing programm has been modified to reduce the financial impact of the "Bond" test.Essentially through a process of elimination we do the final more expensive testing on a restricted number of colonies.This sharply limits the financial impact of the test progamm. First colonies are selected for economic characteristics such as honey,pollen and royal jelly production. Then the best colonies are tested for hygienic behavior using frozen brood inserts.

Duing this test the piece of brood cut out to make room for the insert is recovered and the number of adult,daughter and immature varroa mites counted. At the same time a sample of bees ist taken to count mites on the adult bees. The best colonies with the least amount of varroa are not treated and are used for breeder queens.Daughters from these queens will produce drones to mate with the beekeepers virgins the following year. It is important o use as many different grafting mothers as possible to avoid inbreeding. Selection cane done using only natural mating and does not require expensive testing equipment. At the present time we cannot economically justify chemicals to kill varroa mites because our varroa infestation and reproduction rates are less than 5%.

© Apimondia 2009 Scientific programme - John Kefuss