Monday, September 28, 2009
Apis Newsletter Posted
The September Apis Newsletter has now been posted at http://home.ezezine.com/1636_2/.
Monday, September 21, 2009
More From Apimondia in Montpellier, France
The sessions on the last day of the Bee Biology Commission concerned the overall theme of conserving populations of honey bees. The effect of genetic sequencing, combined with other methods using microsatellites and morphometrics, are providing a good deal of in-depth information about bee stocks. Papers in this session included a multivariate morphological analysis of Chinese bees, the first time a native Apis mellifera has been reported in the country. The genetic variablility in Bulgarian bees, Syrian populations (Apis mellifera syriaca), as well as Turkish honey bees was described. It appears that native ecotypes are holding their own in the face of organized beekeeping efforts in some areas, but the fear is that the potential exists for genetic "pollution" in many regions via migratory beekeeping.
A paper on bee "livestock" found in France described a study of 5247 colonies in 52 separate areas. This reveals that French populations are divided into three main regions, Corsica, Southern, and Northern, but with a fairly low level of population differentiation. The results of a study of a certain ecotype (Landes region of southwest France)using a multi-tiered screening process of both morphological and genetic information indicate that these might be effectively correlated to selecting for certain behaviors. These could be used on a quantitative basis to help the conservation of certain stocks.
The case study of the conservation of Laeso native honey bee stock in Denmark was an eye-opener. After a number of court cases, the small island of Laeso was basically divided into two areas, native black bees on one end, and a hybridized population with Italians and other races on the other. The results showed that most of 583 colonies on the island were relatively hybridized in 2005 (only 50 colonies contained less than 10% non mellifera genes), but by 2007 a population of 123 colonies with less than 1% emerged while 273 colonies were below 10%. It is possible it seems for stocks to be conserved, if everyone agrees with the goal, and a concrete, clear border is established, even on a small island.
Queen rearing technologies are also being developed. A paper using embryo transfer to introduce stocks with a minimum of risk revealed that this was a reliable procedure. Over 90% of transferred larvae developed normally, were able to be instrumentally inseminated and subsequently laid eggs. A Romanian paper described a database being used to calculate selection indices. The software is available over the internet, but not currently in the English language.
A discussion of the French National Breeders Association, ANERCA, revealed that it was created in 1979, has about 250 members, and as of 2004 has had one professional staff member, who edits the magazine called "Info-Reines." The latest edition of the magazine was distributed and contains articles about selecting bees for pollen collection, originally written by Dr. Robert Page, Emeritus Professor at the University of California, Davis.
A survey by ANERCA shows that beekeepers in France requeen 43% of their colonies each year, mostly by dividing and introducing cells. Most breeders sell 100 to 200 "queen equivalents," generally Buckfast, Black, Caucasian and Carniolan stock. It appears the market is growing for queens and there is more interest in the activity each year. ANERCA runs a number of classes for queen rearing around the country.
ANERCA hosted a bee breeders meeting attended by about 30 people in Montpellier. The event revealed that a good many bee breeding and conservation activities exist, but there is little coordination and no communication among the groups. The outcome of the meeting is an attempt to collect names and addresses of breeding programs and activities into a directory. Many of the activities of ANERCA and other breeding programs as described in both poster and oral sessions are in line with the goals of the Global Bee Breeders Association.
The 41st Apimondia closed with an emotional ceremony. In the most anticipated event of the evening, the voting delegates chose Ukraine to host the 2013 meeting in Kiev. The presidential mantel was officially passed from Asger Jorgensen to Gilles Ratia. In his farewell address, Mr. Jorgensen said that in the 10 years of his presidency, Apimondia had gained great stature, shown by the unprecedented number of scientists presenting their work at congresses. He implored Mr. Ratia to treat Apimondia gently in the future. Finally, Argentina took up the challenge of hosting the 42nd congress in Argentina in two years to the whirl of tango dancers on stage, accompanied by guitar and bandoneon.
Traditionally, a day of touring follows the closing ceremony. I was a member of four bus loads headed towards the northern reaches of the region (Languedoc Roussillon) to visit an apiary and castle near Mt. Lozere and the town of Ville Fort. The operation was typical of the region; a second generation beekeeper running 1200 hives in the mountains, ranging from 500 to 1400 meters in elevation. The main crops here are chestnut (chatanier) and two kinds of heather (white and blue. The extraction equipment featured plastic vibrating plugs that are needed to get the thixotropic heather honey moving out of the comb. This was combined with hot rooms used to store the supers before extracting in the mountainous, cool climate. The few bees we saw and those on display in the video of the beekeeper's operation were large and dark, almost silky in appearance, no doubt a form of Apis mellifera mellifera, but bigger than others I have seen.
After visiting the apiary, an informal lunch was provided in a restaurant loaned by the owner to his beekeeper friend for the occasion. After an aperitif of various alcoholic beverages and French "pizza," a generous supply of different meats and cheeses were provided, along with the usual red table wine.
Lunch was followed by a tour to La Garde Guerin <http://la.garde48.free.fr/>, a 12th century castle that for centuries guarded the only pass in the region between the north and the south. Clouds built up over the highlands and a drizzle began just before we got back on the bus. The trip back to Montpellier officially closed Apimondia 41.
A paper on bee "livestock" found in France described a study of 5247 colonies in 52 separate areas. This reveals that French populations are divided into three main regions, Corsica, Southern, and Northern, but with a fairly low level of population differentiation. The results of a study of a certain ecotype (Landes region of southwest France)using a multi-tiered screening process of both morphological and genetic information indicate that these might be effectively correlated to selecting for certain behaviors. These could be used on a quantitative basis to help the conservation of certain stocks.
The case study of the conservation of Laeso native honey bee stock in Denmark was an eye-opener. After a number of court cases, the small island of Laeso was basically divided into two areas, native black bees on one end, and a hybridized population with Italians and other races on the other. The results showed that most of 583 colonies on the island were relatively hybridized in 2005 (only 50 colonies contained less than 10% non mellifera genes), but by 2007 a population of 123 colonies with less than 1% emerged while 273 colonies were below 10%. It is possible it seems for stocks to be conserved, if everyone agrees with the goal, and a concrete, clear border is established, even on a small island.
Queen rearing technologies are also being developed. A paper using embryo transfer to introduce stocks with a minimum of risk revealed that this was a reliable procedure. Over 90% of transferred larvae developed normally, were able to be instrumentally inseminated and subsequently laid eggs. A Romanian paper described a database being used to calculate selection indices. The software is available over the internet, but not currently in the English language.
A discussion of the French National Breeders Association, ANERCA, revealed that it was created in 1979, has about 250 members, and as of 2004 has had one professional staff member, who edits the magazine called "Info-Reines." The latest edition of the magazine was distributed and contains articles about selecting bees for pollen collection, originally written by Dr. Robert Page, Emeritus Professor at the University of California, Davis.
A survey by ANERCA shows that beekeepers in France requeen 43% of their colonies each year, mostly by dividing and introducing cells. Most breeders sell 100 to 200 "queen equivalents," generally Buckfast, Black, Caucasian and Carniolan stock. It appears the market is growing for queens and there is more interest in the activity each year. ANERCA runs a number of classes for queen rearing around the country.
ANERCA hosted a bee breeders meeting attended by about 30 people in Montpellier. The event revealed that a good many bee breeding and conservation activities exist, but there is little coordination and no communication among the groups. The outcome of the meeting is an attempt to collect names and addresses of breeding programs and activities into a directory. Many of the activities of ANERCA and other breeding programs as described in both poster and oral sessions are in line with the goals of the Global Bee Breeders Association.
The 41st Apimondia closed with an emotional ceremony. In the most anticipated event of the evening, the voting delegates chose Ukraine to host the 2013 meeting in Kiev. The presidential mantel was officially passed from Asger Jorgensen to Gilles Ratia. In his farewell address, Mr. Jorgensen said that in the 10 years of his presidency, Apimondia had gained great stature, shown by the unprecedented number of scientists presenting their work at congresses. He implored Mr. Ratia to treat Apimondia gently in the future. Finally, Argentina took up the challenge of hosting the 42nd congress in Argentina in two years to the whirl of tango dancers on stage, accompanied by guitar and bandoneon.
Traditionally, a day of touring follows the closing ceremony. I was a member of four bus loads headed towards the northern reaches of the region (Languedoc Roussillon) to visit an apiary and castle near Mt. Lozere and the town of Ville Fort. The operation was typical of the region; a second generation beekeeper running 1200 hives in the mountains, ranging from 500 to 1400 meters in elevation. The main crops here are chestnut (chatanier) and two kinds of heather (white and blue. The extraction equipment featured plastic vibrating plugs that are needed to get the thixotropic heather honey moving out of the comb. This was combined with hot rooms used to store the supers before extracting in the mountainous, cool climate. The few bees we saw and those on display in the video of the beekeeper's operation were large and dark, almost silky in appearance, no doubt a form of Apis mellifera mellifera, but bigger than others I have seen.
After visiting the apiary, an informal lunch was provided in a restaurant loaned by the owner to his beekeeper friend for the occasion. After an aperitif of various alcoholic beverages and French "pizza," a generous supply of different meats and cheeses were provided, along with the usual red table wine.
Lunch was followed by a tour to La Garde Guerin <http://la.garde48.free.fr/>, a 12th century castle that for centuries guarded the only pass in the region between the north and the south. Clouds built up over the highlands and a drizzle began just before we got back on the bus. The trip back to Montpellier officially closed Apimondia 41.
Friday, September 18, 2009
From Apimondia in Montpellier, France
I finally got a respite to post information to this blog about the 41st edition of Apimondia. I got Montpellier three days ago, after a visit to Paris, Avignon and San Remy de Provence. The pre-registration here is rumored to be 3,000; most don't think attendance will reach much higher than that although I don't have access to official information on attendance. Several themes of the congress are apparent; one is the colony losses around the world that have been reported ever since the CCD situation in the U.S. reared its head. The European Union has mounted a big project called COST network COLOSS and participants, including U.S. researchers, attended an event before the Congress will be attending several meetings in the future on this situation. The U.S. is not the only area where losses are unacceptably high it seems.
As part of the colony loss situation, there is an emphasis on bee health during the sessions at both bee biology and and bee health sessions. One problem is that measurement of colony losses is not uniform. A questionnaire is being circulated about perceptions of losses in various countries, but there is no objective measurement of this at the moment. This will a major goal of the COLOSS project.
The two most important areas of advances in bee science reported here are those associated with genetic studies (the role of genetic diversity and mapping) and those studies associated with the honey bee brain. Bees are no longer considered "dumb robots"; they can learn and have innate intelligence as well as cooperative thinking. One presentation was entitled "How can honey bees learn from robots?" A whole lot it seems. Another suggested that aging in the brain could be reversed in honey bees by artificially reverting them from aged foragers to younger nurse bees.
Describing the genome has led to many new possibilities in studying bee health. Chips arrayed with various genetic combination are becoming more and more available and mapping the genes for Varroa tolerance and disease resistance is a rapidly developing field. The evolution of honey bees has been revolutionized; it is now thought to be an African root, not an Asian one where the other Apis species are located. Loss of diversity in some places where Varroa has taken out much of the wild population is made up for in areas where diversity has and continues to be maintained. There is much concern about conserving wild ecotypes as human beekeeping and bee movement seeks to globalize the population. Many selection programs do not take into account ecotype, color or other traditional measures; instead honey production, Varroa tolerance and disease resistance are the goals.
As is the case for the past two Apimondias, the number of papers on the biology and treatment of Varroa is greatly reduced. Instead there are increasing numbers of study on Varroa-tolerant populations and breeding programs taking advantage of this trait(s). Perhaps the most colorful speaker on this subject is Dr. John Kefuss, who addressed the American Beekeeping Federation, a few years ago on his "Bond" test results in France, where he has produced a population of bees not needing treatment in some cases for 5 years. He has an open invitation to visit him in Tolouse and he will pay one cent for every Varroa mite discovered in his colonies; the record so far as I recall is a Spanish beekeeper (researcher?) who found a grand total of 9. Over a decade ago, he predicted that there would be 30 genes associated with Varroa tolerance; the actual number found so far is 37. He says that soon Varroa will be relegated to the sidelines as is the Tracheal mite (Acarapis woodi) at the present time. This was echoed by Yves Le Conte of the Avignon INRA lab during his presentation, where he has also followed colonies that require no treatment since 1992.
I have received notice that more discussion might be needed with reference to Dr. Kefuss' work described above and he kindly sent me an update:
Dear Malcom,
At the Apimondia congress in Lausanne we put forward the hypothesis that hygienic behavior is probably controlled by at least 30 genes but as we pointed out we did not have the hard data to back it up. We drew these conclusions because when we test for hygienic behavior we usually do not get curves following a normal bell shaped distribution. A good example is the data from Chile published on page 58 of the January 2010 American Bee Journal. Here there appear to be 3 peaks. However depending upon the width of the bars that you choose for your graph you will modify the number of peaks that can be observed. So I will still stand by our hypothesis that hygienic behavior is probably controlled by at least 30 genes. Whether these genes could be associated with varroa resistance mechanisms I don't know ( have to find them first, then test). I also stand by my statement to you in Montpellier that within the next 50 years ( which is soon by biological standards ) we will probably not be talking much about varroa mites.
It was Cedric Alaux et al. from Avignon who gave the talk just before mine that stated that there were 37 genes that "are potential candidates for the behavioral tolerance.... to destructive mites". He compared VSH+ and VSH- bees and found that 37 genes were differently expressed. More detailed information can be found on the Apimondia website where all the abstracts are published.
I am also of the opinion that no genes have been proven to directly affect resistance to varroa. That requires controlled testing in the bee yard. You know that there is a very good positive correlation between the number of preachers and drunks. But that does not mean because you have more preachers this causes you to have more drunks.
The World Varroa Challenge went very well. The winner Clive de Bruyn from England found 20 varroa in about 2 hours time. He had a neck to neck battle with Seith Rick from California who found 17 during the same period. They were under real stress. We had piles of dead bodies (pupae) laying on lids all over the bee yard. I had budgeted 100 cents for the Challenge but I ran over by 7 cents because the 50+ visitors found a total 107 varroa. However I am not going to cry over the 7 cents. Slave labor to do the testing would have been a lot more expensive and less efficient.
Best wishes for 2010
Yours truly,
John
Ps. You can cite my comments in your blog if you wish.
Dr. John A. Kefuss
49 RUE JONAS PHONE (33)561578715
312OO TOULOUSE FRANCE
Somewhat behind the scenes, the politics of Apimonida is also changing: Gilles Ratia, current president of the Economy Commission, has been elected President as Asger Jorgensen is stepping down. Mr. Ratia plans to open up Apimondia more by instituting commissions from Oceania, Africa and the Americas. The organization will also be involved in a number of meetings around the world before the next world event to be held in Buenos Aires in 2011. There is a lively competition for the congress after that. Most in evidence are the Ukrainians, who officially came out in Melbourne winning many prizes and having one of their own crowned honey queen; they have brought along a musical and dance ensemble, and are lobbying heavily for the meeting to be in Kiev. Others in the running include Spain (Granada), Italy (Verona), Hungary (Budapest), Bulgaria (Sofia), Turkey (Istanbul)and Slovenia. Brazil waits in the wings for the next congress in the Americas and will host an IberoAmerican Congress in Natal next October.
Another exotic pest has come to the honey bee world, beginning in France but could be introduced elsewhere. This is the oriental hornet, Vespa velutina, which has devastated hives in some parts of the country, but not in all. The French are learning from colleagues in the middle east like Jordan and Israel challenged by Vespa orientalis ways to confront this invader. The sizes of the nests on display here are pretty impressive, reaching two or three times those of the bald faced hornet seen in the U.S.
Besides sessions from the regular commissions including Economy, Biology, Bee Health, Pollination, Technology and Quality, Apitherapy and Rural Development, the 41st Congress also includes four round table discussions, two on pesticides (the effects of neonicotinoids like imidacloprid and others (e.g. fipronel), as well as the effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)and the role of veterinarians in beekeeping regulation and education of beekeepers. A big difference between the U.S. and the rest of the beekeeping world is that veterinarians are not involved in bee health in the former, but are very much so in most of the rest of the world. A fourth round table is on the use of honey bees as so-called "sentinels of the environment, which is the official theme of this year's Congress.
The Montpellier event is also perhaps the first Apimondia that has an official outreach to the general public. Thus, at the entrance to the meeting at Le Corum, an array of tents has been erected including a good many displays from environmental groups such as Greenpeace. In addition, each day there is children's program, including things like movies and actors on stilts.
The Congress goes on two more days; the last (Sunday) to be an excursion to a nearby region. It will include visits to apiaries and tourist sites. I hope to be able to post something else before I leave, but am not optimistic since I am finding
little time to do so and am experiencing intermittent computer problems.
As part of the colony loss situation, there is an emphasis on bee health during the sessions at both bee biology and and bee health sessions. One problem is that measurement of colony losses is not uniform. A questionnaire is being circulated about perceptions of losses in various countries, but there is no objective measurement of this at the moment. This will a major goal of the COLOSS project.
The two most important areas of advances in bee science reported here are those associated with genetic studies (the role of genetic diversity and mapping) and those studies associated with the honey bee brain. Bees are no longer considered "dumb robots"; they can learn and have innate intelligence as well as cooperative thinking. One presentation was entitled "How can honey bees learn from robots?" A whole lot it seems. Another suggested that aging in the brain could be reversed in honey bees by artificially reverting them from aged foragers to younger nurse bees.
Describing the genome has led to many new possibilities in studying bee health. Chips arrayed with various genetic combination are becoming more and more available and mapping the genes for Varroa tolerance and disease resistance is a rapidly developing field. The evolution of honey bees has been revolutionized; it is now thought to be an African root, not an Asian one where the other Apis species are located. Loss of diversity in some places where Varroa has taken out much of the wild population is made up for in areas where diversity has and continues to be maintained. There is much concern about conserving wild ecotypes as human beekeeping and bee movement seeks to globalize the population. Many selection programs do not take into account ecotype, color or other traditional measures; instead honey production, Varroa tolerance and disease resistance are the goals.
As is the case for the past two Apimondias, the number of papers on the biology and treatment of Varroa is greatly reduced. Instead there are increasing numbers of study on Varroa-tolerant populations and breeding programs taking advantage of this trait(s). Perhaps the most colorful speaker on this subject is Dr. John Kefuss, who addressed the American Beekeeping Federation, a few years ago on his "Bond" test results in France, where he has produced a population of bees not needing treatment in some cases for 5 years. He has an open invitation to visit him in Tolouse and he will pay one cent for every Varroa mite discovered in his colonies; the record so far as I recall is a Spanish beekeeper (researcher?) who found a grand total of 9. Over a decade ago, he predicted that there would be 30 genes associated with Varroa tolerance; the actual number found so far is 37. He says that soon Varroa will be relegated to the sidelines as is the Tracheal mite (Acarapis woodi) at the present time. This was echoed by Yves Le Conte of the Avignon INRA lab during his presentation, where he has also followed colonies that require no treatment since 1992.
I have received notice that more discussion might be needed with reference to Dr. Kefuss' work described above and he kindly sent me an update:
Dear Malcom,
At the Apimondia congress in Lausanne we put forward the hypothesis that hygienic behavior is probably controlled by at least 30 genes but as we pointed out we did not have the hard data to back it up. We drew these conclusions because when we test for hygienic behavior we usually do not get curves following a normal bell shaped distribution. A good example is the data from Chile published on page 58 of the January 2010 American Bee Journal. Here there appear to be 3 peaks. However depending upon the width of the bars that you choose for your graph you will modify the number of peaks that can be observed. So I will still stand by our hypothesis that hygienic behavior is probably controlled by at least 30 genes. Whether these genes could be associated with varroa resistance mechanisms I don't know ( have to find them first, then test). I also stand by my statement to you in Montpellier that within the next 50 years ( which is soon by biological standards ) we will probably not be talking much about varroa mites.
It was Cedric Alaux et al. from Avignon who gave the talk just before mine that stated that there were 37 genes that "are potential candidates for the behavioral tolerance.... to destructive mites". He compared VSH+ and VSH- bees and found that 37 genes were differently expressed. More detailed information can be found on the Apimondia website where all the abstracts are published.
I am also of the opinion that no genes have been proven to directly affect resistance to varroa. That requires controlled testing in the bee yard. You know that there is a very good positive correlation between the number of preachers and drunks. But that does not mean because you have more preachers this causes you to have more drunks.
The World Varroa Challenge went very well. The winner Clive de Bruyn from England found 20 varroa in about 2 hours time. He had a neck to neck battle with Seith Rick from California who found 17 during the same period. They were under real stress. We had piles of dead bodies (pupae) laying on lids all over the bee yard. I had budgeted 100 cents for the Challenge but I ran over by 7 cents because the 50+ visitors found a total 107 varroa. However I am not going to cry over the 7 cents. Slave labor to do the testing would have been a lot more expensive and less efficient.
Best wishes for 2010
Yours truly,
John
Ps. You can cite my comments in your blog if you wish.
Dr. John A. Kefuss
49 RUE JONAS PHONE (33)561578715
312OO TOULOUSE FRANCE
Somewhat behind the scenes, the politics of Apimonida is also changing: Gilles Ratia, current president of the Economy Commission, has been elected President as Asger Jorgensen is stepping down. Mr. Ratia plans to open up Apimondia more by instituting commissions from Oceania, Africa and the Americas. The organization will also be involved in a number of meetings around the world before the next world event to be held in Buenos Aires in 2011. There is a lively competition for the congress after that. Most in evidence are the Ukrainians, who officially came out in Melbourne winning many prizes and having one of their own crowned honey queen; they have brought along a musical and dance ensemble, and are lobbying heavily for the meeting to be in Kiev. Others in the running include Spain (Granada), Italy (Verona), Hungary (Budapest), Bulgaria (Sofia), Turkey (Istanbul)and Slovenia. Brazil waits in the wings for the next congress in the Americas and will host an IberoAmerican Congress in Natal next October.
Another exotic pest has come to the honey bee world, beginning in France but could be introduced elsewhere. This is the oriental hornet, Vespa velutina, which has devastated hives in some parts of the country, but not in all. The French are learning from colleagues in the middle east like Jordan and Israel challenged by Vespa orientalis ways to confront this invader. The sizes of the nests on display here are pretty impressive, reaching two or three times those of the bald faced hornet seen in the U.S.
Besides sessions from the regular commissions including Economy, Biology, Bee Health, Pollination, Technology and Quality, Apitherapy and Rural Development, the 41st Congress also includes four round table discussions, two on pesticides (the effects of neonicotinoids like imidacloprid and others (e.g. fipronel), as well as the effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)and the role of veterinarians in beekeeping regulation and education of beekeepers. A big difference between the U.S. and the rest of the beekeeping world is that veterinarians are not involved in bee health in the former, but are very much so in most of the rest of the world. A fourth round table is on the use of honey bees as so-called "sentinels of the environment, which is the official theme of this year's Congress.
The Montpellier event is also perhaps the first Apimondia that has an official outreach to the general public. Thus, at the entrance to the meeting at Le Corum, an array of tents has been erected including a good many displays from environmental groups such as Greenpeace. In addition, each day there is children's program, including things like movies and actors on stilts.
The Congress goes on two more days; the last (Sunday) to be an excursion to a nearby region. It will include visits to apiaries and tourist sites. I hope to be able to post something else before I leave, but am not optimistic since I am finding
little time to do so and am experiencing intermittent computer problems.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Apis Newsletter Posted
The June Apis newsletter has been posted. See it and back issues at http://home.ezezine.com/1636_2/. Also bee sure to consult the Global Beekeeping Calendar coming to you courtesy of Bee Culture Magazine.
Friday, May 15, 2009
May Apis Newsletter Posted
The May Apis newsletter has been posted to http://home.ezezine.com/1636_2/
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Apis Newsletter Posted
The Apis Newsletter for April has been posted at http://home.ezezine.com/1636_2/.
Malcolm T. Sanford
http://apis.shorturl.com
Malcolm T. Sanford
http://apis.shorturl.com
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