European Buckfast Breeders Association and Project Varroaresistenz33 organized the 2. international conference with the theme “Treatment free Europe by 2033”,” Arbeitstagung” as they call it in German language, in Dresden Germany 13.-14.1.2024. I was honored to be one of the speakers. Pictures I got from René Schieback and Tino Lorz.
The project name “Varroaresistenz33” refers to a common goal: Europe should be free of varroa treatments by the year 2033. This has been agreed by all major bee institutes and associations in Germany. The declaration in Neuenstein-Aua 19.5.2022 urged all other European organizations to join in this massive effort. See my blog https://naturebees.wordpress.com/2023/01/
Saturday began with the presentation of Ralph Büchler. He was the only representative of the numerous German bee institutes. This may be due some error or misunderstanding in the invitations. Some participants said it more bluntly: The German bee institutes have political and principal quarrel with the organizers. Not participating may have been a protest.
Seems that Ralph Büchler can concentrate in the subject, and not to be disturbed by historic burden. On the right Marie Förster, Imkerei SchelmenStreich.
One of the main points in Büchlers presentation was that we should get rid of winter treatments. This because the winter treatment is very efficient and thus we do not have the necessary selective pressure in the next summer drone brood rearing. Drones are haploid and any weaknesses show in their phenotype, in contrast to diploid animals where weaknesses may be hidden by the other set of chromosomes. In Büchlers instructions mites are destroyed with biotechnical methods after the main mating season. The queen is caged, and mites caught in one or two frames in the middle of brood nest. The other method is the total removal of brood in mid-summer. This way the infestation levels are brought down before the crucial time of winter bee rearing in August-September.
The next speaker was Eugen Neuhauser (left) from Austria. I did not understand very much. First, I was sure it was because of the very special German dialect, which totally confused not only me but the Google translator app of my handy equally. I really wanted to know about his situation regarding varroa and treatments and therefore asked some German speaking beekeepers sitting nearby “What did Eugen tell about his varroa treatments?” A bit confusing answer was “He is very good at speaking a lot and telling very little.”
BartJan Fernhout had a serious message. The two major financial contributors of Arista, both Dutch foundations, have ceased their support! About 90% of their budget is gone!
From left: BartJan Fernhout and Paul Jungels.
Arista Foundation has done cooperation with a company doing whole genome sequencing. Their study came up with 9 different locations, out of which 5 have been reported in other research groups and studies earlier, which correlated with VSH ability of bees. The future goal is to be able to do fast, reliable, and relatively cheap DNA test of all possible breeder queens whether they have the necessary genes for varroa resistance or not.
He also pointed out how fast breeding method one-drone-insemination combined with VSH factor counting is. In just couple generations 75% VSH queens can be raised. The Arista style VSH breeding system is a combination of raising SDI (single drone insemination) and MDI (multi drone insemination) queens. This way the important genetic variation is not diminishing too much. After his presentation I asked BartJan how he sees the ability of VSH hives in a situation where there is a big re-infestation pressure from other hives. BartJan pointed out that re-infestation, no matter how strong, should be no problem to 100% VSH hives. The VSH bees start to work with “extra” infestation right away and after a while the infestation is back to the equilibrium, which is about 1% infestation, or less, in adult bees.
Later I asked Paul Jungels this same question about re-infestation. He has practical experience from Luxembourg where they have a VSH mating place to common use. A circle of beekeepers not treating is growing larger each year around this mating place. Paul said that there are some yards I the outskirts of this VSH circle where in the brood areas can be seen more holes, more brood taken out. VSH bees are trying to get rid of mites. This slows down the spring development. But he did not either see re-infestation as a problem.
The conference had a meeting with John Harbo. Unfortunately we had not seen his presentation before the video contact was taken. The audience had the chance to ask questions. To my question of the best varroa resistant lines in US, he answered that for example Weaver and Finkelstein have got breeding material from his lab.
VSH breeding is hard work. An example: Jungels family, son Victor is soon taking over the business, has about 250 honey producing hives. On top of that are the Brother Adam style overwintered nucs for preselection. They have to do about 100 VSH tests every year in the near coming future too. In each counting about 300 cells must be opened under a stereo microscope. It is necessary to open so many calls to find enough mites. Careful notes on paper are made of every mite found. She is either a mother mite with normal age offspring, mother mite without offspring, mother mite with too young offspring, mother mite without male offspring, etc.
Most of the VSH tests in Jungles apiary tests are done by a group of volunteers. In this respect he resembles Brother Adam, people working for him free. Personally, he does not like this comparison.
Picture below: I had no idea that I speak with such a great deal of expression! 🙂
In my presentation I showed the results of my 23 years of work. How after a period of several severe losses my hives seem to have reached varroa resistance, an equilibrium is somewhere 1-3% infestation in adult bees. Because my breeding system has been basically HARD Bond style, it is obvious that the resulting bee is different in relation to the bee bred by the principles of VSH. It is interesting that both BartJan and Paul insist that VSH breeding, done the way they do it, considers ALL aspects of varroa resistance. In my presentation I argued that it is not that way. For example, virus resistance, grooming, patrolling in hive entrance, bees with mites flying out to die, these are factors of resistance which VSH breeding system will very unlikely take into account. All breeding systems have their pros and cons. Virus resistance and varroa tolerance are needed when your neighboring beekeeper refuses to change his much beloved non-resistant stock.
In this transition period to treatment free world, we are going to see resistance, not to mites, but human resistance to change.
In the picture below Tino Lorz and René Schieback, the main organizers of this conference.
Insemination experts: René Schieback inseminates queens as a profession (up to more than 100 queens a day) and Jürgen Brausse is specialist and inventor of sperm mixing technology.
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