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Author Topic: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing  (Read 10758 times)

Offline tillie

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Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« on: October 11, 2007, 08:54:46 am »
Last night at the Metro Beekeepers Meeting, Jennifer Berry talked about choosing the hive from which she wants to make new queens and she said one of the factors she chooses for is hygienic behavior. 

She determines this by freezing a small section of brood comb from that hive. 
She cuts a section - looked like about 3" X 3" - out of a brood frame
Before freezing, she counts the nonbrood cells in the section - empty ones, pollen filled or honey filled. 
Then she freezes the section. 
Then she returns the section to the brood frame and hooks it in with tooth picks. 
She leaves it for 24 hours and then pulls out the brood frame and counts the empty cells in the section that was frozen. 

A good hygienic hive will have cleaned out the dead bees from the frozen section.  If they do it well, then she thinks this is a hive from which to raise a queen who will be hygienic.

This may be old news to all of you who have been doing this, but as a second year beekeeper, I thought this was fascinating.

Linda T learning in Atlanta

Offline doak

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2007, 05:21:25 pm »
That is one of the first things to look for in selecting a colony for Queen rearing.
Hygienic behavior is very important.
doak

Offline Old Timer

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2007, 05:52:32 pm »
i've said that on here, but then some people want to say breed ahb into your bees for mite resistance, go figure. beekeeping is so much more enjoyable with hygienic bees since you don't have to worry so much about the mites or other pest and disease. i believe the freezing of brood laden comb was one of the determining factors for marla spivak selecting her hygienic minnesota italian.

Offline tillie

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2007, 08:00:05 pm »
Jennifer referred to Spivak as her best source for information, so you are probably right about that.

Linda T learning every day in Atlanta

Offline Old Timer

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2007, 03:42:22 am »
if the bees remove 95% of brood in 48 hrs they are considered hygienic. if they take only 24 hrs, they are very hygienic. if they take six days, they are pretty sorry. if you don't want to cut your combs you can use liquid nitrogen. you should test the hives that are considered hygienic at least twice. they have to pull out the frozen brood within 48 hrs during both tests to truly be considered hygienic. most beekeepers won't ever try this because they think it takes too much time. i'd rather do this and propagate my hygienic queens than to do sugar rolls, ether rolls, sugar shakes, do mite counts, and especially to not have to treat(all of which will take more time over the course of a year than testing for hygienic behavior). it's much cheaper and easier to keep hygienic bees.

Offline sc-bee

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2007, 09:48:45 am »
Using the liquid nitrogen do you use a piece of PVC pipe as a template? What size? Where do you get the liquid nitrogen and how do you dispesr it on the comb?
John 3:16

Offline Old Timer

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2007, 01:37:22 pm »
use a 3" diameter piece of pvc. welding supply companies carry it. i'm sure if you google "testing for hygienic bees" there will be some sites which elaborate on it.

Offline tillie

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #7 on: October 12, 2007, 06:10:00 pm »
She talked about the liquid nitrogen first and actually showed pictures of that type of freezing, but she told us about the frozen sections for those of us who might be interested but wouldn't have access to liquid nitrogen.

Linda T in the N Ga Mtns

Offline Kirk-o

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2007, 11:10:56 pm »
What are the other things you look for in chooseing a hive for making queens?
kirko
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Offline Old Timer

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2007, 08:49:48 am »
i borrowed these from one of my old books;

The Primary Qualities for Performance

   1. Fecundity - a prolific queen
   2. Industry or Foraging Zeal
   3. Resistance to Disease
   4. Disinclination to Swarm

Secondary Qualities

   1. Longevity
   2. Wing-power
   3. Keen Sense of Smell
   4. Instinct for Defense
   5. Hardiness and Ability to Winter
   6. Spring Development
   7. Thrift
   8. Instinct for Self Provisioning
   9. Arrangement of the Honey Stores
  10. Wax Production and Comb Building
  11. Gathering of Pollen
  12. Tongue-reach

Qualities which Influence Management

   1. Good Temper
   2. Calm Behavior
   3. Disinclination to Propolizse
   4. Disinclination to make Brace Comb
   5. Cleanliness
   6. Honey Cappings
   7. Sense of Orientation

Offline Cindi

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #10 on: October 13, 2007, 10:58:02 am »
Linda, that was cool, I like that when I am going to be doing queen selection next year for breeding my own queens.  The information from your book Old Timer was great too.

I know next year I am going to need queens and I really want to get into raising my own.

I have Italian and Carniolan.

Definitely the Carniolan gather more nectar and do not propolize even close to the extent that the Italians do.

I will have to be doing some deep thought into what I will raise, it is very new and unknown to me.  I took a course on queen rearing, it was grafting, and that was a hummdinger!!!!  I did not do very well when it came to counting how many larvae were used by the bees (I think I had many cells that didn't have a larva even in them after grafting) to make queens.  But practice makes perfect, of course.

I do like the fact that the Carniolan breed has a longer tongue than the Italian and forages in cooler weather, smaller winter cluster.  Pretty good attributes, but the swarmy propensity is the issue (but then maybe not too), depends on the amount of time spent on swarm prevention I guess.  Oh, well, have a wonderful and beautiful day, in this great ol' world.  Cindi
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #11 on: October 13, 2007, 08:41:06 pm »
I lost track of Jennifer.  The email I have doesn't work anymore.  I have some information I was supposed to get to her.  Any chance anyone out there could have her get a hold of me?
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
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Offline Old Timer

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #12 on: October 13, 2007, 10:32:16 pm »
is this the same? Jennifer Berry (jbee@bugs.ent.uga.edu) 706-769-1736
hope that helps.

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #13 on: October 13, 2007, 10:51:48 pm »
Thanks.  That's the email I had and it got returned.  I'll try it again...
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
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Offline doak

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #14 on: October 13, 2007, 11:19:02 pm »
Try this one.

jbee@uga.edu

This is the one I got when it was changed about a year ago.

doak

Offline tillie

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #15 on: October 13, 2007, 11:37:55 pm »
I used the one Doak put up to send her a thanks for the talk email and it didn't bounce back.  I got it from this link:

http://www.ent.uga.edu/Bees/Personnel/Berry.htm

jbee@uga.edu

Linda T in the N Ga Mountains where it's supposed to be in the 30s tonight!!! Whoo hoo!


Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #16 on: October 14, 2007, 12:16:42 am »
>jbee@uga.edu

I'll try that one.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
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Offline NWIN Beekeeper

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #17 on: November 16, 2007, 09:19:23 pm »
[...Jennifer referred to Spivak as her best source for information...]

Maybe, but she's not using Marla's choice protocol.
Unless you read and fully understand what you are doing, false positives are easy to occur.

[She determines this by freezing a small section ...looked like about 3" X 3" - out of a brood frame
... Then she freezes the section...for 24 hours ....]

This is a very important point. Anything much longer than 24 hours will cause a kill that will trigger BOTH hygienic and non-hygienic bees to remove the dead larvae.

False positives have also been discovered using the 'pin prick' method.
This method marks a larvae speared with a needle.
It is not recommended by Marla Spivak.

While this is a great effort to find better bees it is very time consuming must be performed correctly to be remotely successful.

One also needs to consider what to do with colonies determined to be non-hygienic?
Dispose of them, requeen with suspected hygienic stocks?

One must also consider how residual the hygienic genes that are being evaluated will stay within the stocks.
Do you need to have hygienic drones to maintain these genes?
If so, Are you instrumentally inseminating or how are you saturating your mating areas?
Are your non-hygienic drones out populating your hygienic?
How do you plan to control the undesirable drones if so?
Do you plan to maintain multiple daughters of the same queen for comparison?
In the same yard, in the same conditions?

Good genetic queen rearing requires a lot more thought than toss some brood in a freezer and see what the bees do (and I'm not accusing that is what is happening here) so think through your entire program of what you are doing. I don't wish anyone to waste their time chasing their tail because they didn't consider a major pitfall in their serious efforts to achieve.

Sometimes the same results can be had easier by a different method.
(Sometimes the results are even better!)

The primary reason that I see people try to establish more hygienic bees is either:
1. They are too cheap (or honestly poor) to buy developed stocks
2. Or they are trying to keep local genetics reasonably intact.
-And with #2 I think a better way to keep the most local genetics is not to cull out non-hygienic bees, but rather to inbreed better genetics. This keeps the most local bees alive and gives them a boost in competing with diease and parasites.

I once thought it would be nice to discover my own local super hygienic bee.
But lets face the truth, bees haven't changed in biology in a million years.
We can tweak a few genes here and there but largely its the same beast.
If I was to find hygienics characterics, likely it came from someone's new package or migratory bee in the orchard up the street.

Humans have a bias that black + white = 50/50 kids and we expect that out of animals alike.
And that's just not the case, especially not in bees. 
Its the reason they've survived so well alone (before man esposed them every diease under the sun nearly at once).

-Jeff
There is nothing new under the sun. Only your perspective changes to see it anew.

Offline Old Timer

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #18 on: November 19, 2007, 07:44:12 pm »
Jeff, you make some good points and raise some good questions as well.

To avoid a false positive, the colony must clean the frozen brood out within 48 hours in two consecutive tests to be considered hygienic. After establishing these colonies as hygienic and breeding from them, they are now performing the same tests but are looking for colonies with daughter queens that do it within 24 hours to improve upon what they already had. Originally, they were going for 48 hrs, now they shoot for 24 hrs. If you start selecting from your colonies next year start with 48, then move to 24. I'm not too knowledgeable of the pin prick method, so maybe someone else can address that.

Of course, one of the easiest ways to get hygienic bees is to stop treating. Let the ones who can't take care of themselves die out. Propagate the ones who do. Repeat every year. When they die out you don't need to worry about the drones. The reason for freezing the brood is to speed the selection up and to have a means as to compare colonies with one another equally. But nothing speaks in volumes like going chemical/treatment free and having a colony survive year after year. I'm sure the big timers wouldn't want to do this when their livelihood is at stake. Most but not all of them will continue to treat prophylacticly and to treat with non-approved chemicals and substances. Did you see Hackenburg pulling that shop rag out of one of his hives on 60 minutes? I wonder what kind of bath tub type treatment was on that rag. But on the other hand, it seems that with their livelihood at stake that they would be the most proactive at trying to have the most hygienic bee possible in order to avoid treating and causing more problems with chemicals. Imagine all the time and money they could save by not treating.

I don't do it because I'm cheap. If I was cheap I'd be scared to death of losing honey the following year and would treat everything in site. I don't do it to keep local genetics intact either. What good are local genetics when you have to treat them every year? I do it because I like to have control of what goes in my hive and to be able to personally asses the performance of my colonies. What good is a hygienic bee if it don't make you some honey? Not that I don't trust others are doing this, but you can't beat first hand experience and observations.

I would be interested in this different method that would be easier to get the same results from if you would enlighten me.

Offline TwT

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Re: Jennifer Berry tip on picking the hive to use for queen rearing
« Reply #19 on: December 13, 2007, 02:00:57 am »
found this while read allen dicks web site,

http://www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/hygienic.htm
THAT's ME TO THE LEFT JUST 5 MONTHS FROM NOW!!!!!!!!

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