| Honeystone Mite Resistance Research 2003 |
| Our research group's efforts produced 29 queens in the summer of 2002. By March of 2003, 25 had survived the winter. During the 2003 season, our efforts centered on propagating and evaluating the colonies produced by the Oregon Russian queens. We hoped to identify and select the most mite resistant and productive queens to be used as breeding stock in further research. Much of the evaluation process involved counting the mite load in the research colonies. Chuck Hunt (right) sprays a "drop sheet" with cooking oil to make it stickier. The drop sheet is placed under a screen bottom board to catch mites that fall through (below). |
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| Parameters for evaluation included the number of mites found in a 72 hour drop period, the pattern of brood laid by each queen, the temperament of the colony, honey production, and tendency to swarm. The major problem experienced by the participating beekeepers was a strong tendency of the hives to swarm. This swarming behavior may be part of the resistance strategy the Russians have evolved over the years. |
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| (right) Wild Harvest Honey crew in their research apiary near the historic Harris Covered Bridge in the spring of 2003. |
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| Kathy Hunt (left) records data in a research yard near Eugene. Of these two hives, one had a mite count of 125, the other only 6. The hive with only 6 mites produced 96 pounds of honey in 2003. | ||||
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| Chuck Hunt of Clear Hills Honey prepares to harvest supers of honey from some of his Oregon Russian colonies. (right) | ||||
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| Honeystone research apiary at honey harvest time in 2003 | ||||
| At the start of the 2003 season, among the three participating businesses, there were a total of 64 hives. These included 12 hybrids, 2 Wooten's (drone mother colonies), 44 Russian queens and 6 control hives. Through the season, 14 died and 17 showed strong swarming tendency. A total of 6 breeder queens were identified. Two of the best queens from the project were provided to Dr. Nick Calderone, Associate Professor of Apiculture in the Entomology Department of Cornell University who is conducting similar research in developing mite resistant bees. Two more were provided to Dr. Lynn Royce of Oregon State University for artificial insemination experiments. The 42 hives that remained in the project produced a total of 2,189 pounds of honey. The 27 Russian hives produced 1285 pounds, or 59% of all the honey produced in the project. On an average, in the fall of 2003, the research hives had 1800 mites. The Russians had an average of 1560 mites. This number was high because of a few Russian hives that had unusually high counts. Most of the Russian stock had lower counts. The group ended the year with some Russian queens that looked very promising for queen rearing in 2004. |