Yep weve gotta keep trying to better our successes and use our assets for a better bee. Hybird vigor is intriguing. I also like to buy in, cut out, swarm catch diversity every year. Keep on keeping on
Great video, I've been working on my own super bee! I run Russian bees from coy bee company. I crossed them with some of Cory Stevens mite hunters. His VSH stock with the grooming trait of the Russians should be a great combo! They are doing great right now but we will see how they over winter! It will take years to see what I'm looking for but you have to start somewhere! Keep up the good work and keep the videos coming!
You have something going here an it doesn’t happen overnight but by your test scores you have had it is showing that it is working an you can not give up because you are making progress an it takes time. Just put one foot in front of the other an it will happen. Thanks
It was awesome chatting with you! I 100% support your initiative flooding DCAs, selecting winners and removing losers, the more large operations do this, the better the hobbyist and sideliners in your area are going to do! Keep doing what you are doing - you get no beef from me there. It was a great convo and I enjoyed it! 😇
There is value in isolating traits.. but I think most of us should focus on genetic diversity and keeping good colonies. It's so expensive and time consuming to continue isolating these traits year after year. Especially when it comes to controlling the drones
For sure. When you’re in the queen breeding biz, it can make financial sense. However for the small side liners and hobbyists, it’s hard to justify the effort (time and money).
This just seems so tough with honeybees. I worked at Smithfield Foods once, specifically the "Build a better pig" genetic division. We could artificially inseminate pigs though, makes it much easier to test genetic lines! With bees though, you have no clue of your breeding stock other than setting up that sweet spot and hoping you don't have other nearby beekeepers polluting your diversity. What's worse is even if you get that perfect genetic bee, once you ship the queen off, those genetics are wiped out in a few generations.
Ashby, Are you going to the Hendersonville, NC beekeepers Assoc. meeting on Dec.2? Bob Binnie and Ian Steppler are going to be there. Myself and a couple buddies are going. We would love to meet you ask you questions about your wax dipping and buying nucs from you. Thanks to you we are going to try to do your Co op for VSH Queens in our area.
How do you reconcile - Colony A scores the Best and Colony F scores the worse in all tests. If Colony F would bred with same drones that Colony A did then their score would have beat the original Colony A score. Next - What if Colony A has produced 150,000 bees and Colony F produced 200,000 bees the how would you know that let alone say Colony A was cleaner when brood amounts were not equal. Next - hive placement within a yard. Colony F received a lot of drift whereas Colony A lost that drift to Colony F. Next - yard placement- Colony A was located next to well maintained bees (Not to mention feral stock), Colony F was located by two hives from a no treatment yard that they robbed out. Seeing how you are getting into breeding and you know existing breeders I thought you could answer these questions.
I’ll do my best to answer the questions in order: 1)not sure I understand your first question. 2) amounts of brood produced aren’t a factor; we only graft from selected high scoring breeders and open mate them in our Nuc yard. 3) yard placement needs to be in an area with very few other hives. We knocked on over 100 doors last winter to find a place with very few other colonies (3 other beekeepers, all on board with our program).
Question one is saying that queens mate with different drones. If you do not know how hygenic the drones are to begin with then how can you know that you are choosing the best queen based upon any hygenic test. Im saying the worse hygenic hive you have may have been the best if the same drones would have mated with that worse hive rather than the best. Amount of brood raised does not matter- How many bees in the hive has no bearing on task of hygenic tendacies? How severe any brood issues are or are not does not matter? How forceful the brood issues, like how long they have dealt with it? Another thing, Feral colonies here produce small queens but I do not keep any small cells just the big ones that I raise. I wonder if nature knows better. Can you find out if there is real evidence that big booty queens are better? I am trying to understand queen rearing. Thank you for your time to answer my question.@@Ashby_Farms_NC
Yep weve gotta keep trying to better our successes and use our assets for a better bee. Hybird vigor is intriguing. I also like to buy in, cut out, swarm catch diversity every year. Keep on keeping on
Oh yeah!
Great video, I've been working on my own super bee! I run Russian bees from coy bee company. I crossed them with some of Cory Stevens mite hunters. His VSH stock with the grooming trait of the Russians should be a great combo! They are doing great right now but we will see how they over winter! It will take years to see what I'm looking for but you have to start somewhere! Keep up the good work and keep the videos coming!
That’s a fantastic plan! I’m rooting for ya!
Excellent explanation of your attempt at better bees in your operation. Good luck to you and Cory. Looking forward to your updates in the future.
Thanks, will do!
You have something going here an it doesn’t happen overnight but by your test scores you have had it is showing that it is working an you can not give up because you are making progress an it takes time. Just put one foot in front of the other an it will happen. Thanks
Thank y’all for the continued support!
It was awesome chatting with you! I 100% support your initiative flooding DCAs, selecting winners and removing losers, the more large operations do this, the better the hobbyist and sideliners in your area are going to do! Keep doing what you are doing - you get no beef from me there. It was a great convo and I enjoyed it! 😇
Same here! Thanks for your support and inputs!!!!
Great video! Thx. 😊
Glad you liked it!
There is value in isolating traits.. but I think most of us should focus on genetic diversity and keeping good colonies. It's so expensive and time consuming to continue isolating these traits year after year. Especially when it comes to controlling the drones
For sure. When you’re in the queen breeding biz, it can make financial sense. However for the small side liners and hobbyists, it’s hard to justify the effort (time and money).
Thank you for the information, another great video
Hope it helped!
This just seems so tough with honeybees. I worked at Smithfield Foods once, specifically the "Build a better pig" genetic division. We could artificially inseminate pigs though, makes it much easier to test genetic lines! With bees though, you have no clue of your breeding stock other than setting up that sweet spot and hoping you don't have other nearby beekeepers polluting your diversity. What's worse is even if you get that perfect genetic bee, once you ship the queen off, those genetics are wiped out in a few generations.
Exactly!
Ashby, Are you going to the Hendersonville, NC beekeepers Assoc. meeting on Dec.2? Bob Binnie and Ian Steppler are going to be there. Myself and a couple buddies are going. We would love to meet you ask you questions about your wax dipping and buying nucs from you. Thanks to you we are going to try to do your Co op for VSH Queens in our area.
Unfortunately I have prior obligations and can’t make it to that talk. Give me a shout sometimes if you’ve got questions 336.693.4392
Eve seen them recap a cell after checking for that sick larvae?
All the time!
So just from equalizing the hives we are making those hives more VSH?
Only temporarily creating more hygienic behavior within a colony, that lasts for about 6 weeks.
How do you reconcile - Colony A scores the Best and Colony F scores the worse in all tests. If Colony F would bred with same drones that Colony A did then their score would have beat the original Colony A score. Next - What if Colony A has produced 150,000 bees and Colony F produced 200,000 bees the how would you know that let alone say Colony A was cleaner when brood amounts were not equal. Next - hive placement within a yard. Colony F received a lot of drift whereas Colony A lost that drift to Colony F. Next - yard placement- Colony A was located next to well maintained bees (Not to mention feral stock), Colony F was located by two hives from a no treatment yard that they robbed out. Seeing how you are getting into breeding and you know existing breeders I thought you could answer these questions.
I’ll do my best to answer the questions in order: 1)not sure I understand your first question. 2) amounts of brood produced aren’t a factor; we only graft from selected high scoring breeders and open mate them in our Nuc yard. 3) yard placement needs to be in an area with very few other hives. We knocked on over 100 doors last winter to find a place with very few other colonies (3 other beekeepers, all on board with our program).
Question one is saying that queens mate with different drones. If you do not know how hygenic the drones are to begin with then how can you know that you are choosing the best queen based upon any hygenic test. Im saying the worse hygenic hive you have may have been the best if the same drones would have mated with that worse hive rather than the best.
Amount of brood raised does not matter- How many bees in the hive has no bearing on task of hygenic tendacies? How severe any brood issues are or are not does not matter? How forceful the brood issues, like how long they have dealt with it?
Another thing, Feral colonies here produce small queens but I do not keep any small cells just the big ones that I raise. I wonder if nature knows better. Can you find out if there is real evidence that big booty queens are better?
I am trying to understand queen rearing. Thank you for your time to answer my question.@@Ashby_Farms_NC
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Thanks!