British man claims to have bred indestructible bees

Great news to combat one of the reasons for the decline of the bee.
Amazing what one person can achieve through dedication.

lets hope it works!



lBritish man claims to have bred indestructible bees

A British man claims to have bred a strain of bee capable of protecting itself from a deadly parasite that is wiping out the environmentally vital insect.

Mr Hoskins, who has carried out research on his colonies for 18 years, has isolated and is breeding a strain of bees which groom each other to remove the mites.

He is now taking sperm from these bees and artificially inseminating queens from other hives to allow the new breed to spread through Britain.

The British Beekeepers' Association, which represents 18,000 beekeepers, yesterday described the work as ''exciting''.

Mr Hoskins, a former heating engineer from Swindon, Wilts., described the situation as ''serious' and warned that ''if the bees die, we die''.

fixed the link and thank you for new link ..it moved =]

[edit on 25-8-2010 by BANANAMONTANA]

He must have some VERY small
test tubes

On a serious note, it takes a person & people like him to achieve things like this.... It may seem insignificant BUT we are all aware of the decline of bees and the effect that will have on humanity in years to come....

Well done mate in doing 'your bit'...

Regards

PurpleDOG UK

reply to post by PurpleDog UK


=] rather sweet really , and positive small steps are good steps

but yes he must indeed have rather good eyesight and a jolly good bee suit.

Man, i got some crazy images there

Well done to this guy! If this is successful he should get a huge 'Look Who Helped Saved The World!' trophy. That was look so sweet on your mantlepiece.

But, i believe it's not only this mite causing the problem of Collony Collapse Disorder and there's plenty of cases of CCD where no mites can be found.

Definitely a step in the right direction by this guy though.

Theres nothing better than the sound of happy bees buzzing around the garden! I often forget how important they are.

Good on this guy, he should have money thrown at him to continue his research.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

reply to post by BANANAMONTANA


Lets just hope this does not turn out like the "killer bees" strain that was experimenteed with in the 70's that is now an issue all over the southern USA...

Frankenbees scare me...

Great, the more people that work on this the better..

Sussex University is working with the British Black and European Dark Honey Bees to produce a hygienic strain (the Black/Dark Honey Bee is cleaner than the imported bees)

I posted a thread about it a while ago if anyone is interested

A Solution to the decline of the Honey Bee

I see quite a number of the British Black Honey bee's in my neck of the woods, they are pretty cool and it's great that a bee so long been neglected by bee keepers is making a come back and could bee a solution to the problems we face.

star and flag

BTW, little bit of Info on the Black Honey bee, Hitler and his Nazis tried to exterminate them from Germany to improve quality of the German bee breeding stock.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by BANANAMONTANA

He is now taking sperm from these bees and artificially inseminating queens from other hives to allow the new breed to spread through Britain.

The article is gone now (for me anyway) but from your quotes I found the above statement slightly worrying.

Has the guy done enough testing and seen results in enough generations of Bees to be confident that he hasn't introduced any other genetic problems by giving the bees this resistance.

I would think that you would have to be very very careful and sure of your results before you tried to spread your experiment throughout the whole of a country. It sounds like he may be jumping the gun a little, but as I said I couldn't see the whole article

Originally posted by thoughtsfull

Great, the more people that work on this the better..

Sussex University is working with the British Black and European Dark Honey Bees to produce a hygienic strain (the Black/Dark Honey Bee is cleaner than the imported bees)

I posted a thread about it a while ago if anyone is interested

A Solution to the decline of the Honey Bee

I see quite a number of the British Black Honey bee's in my neck of the woods, they are pretty cool

and it's great that a bee so long been neglected by bee keepers is making a come back and could bee a solution to the problems we face.

star and flag

BTW, little bit of Info on the Black Honey bee, Hitler and his Nazis tried to exterminate them from Germany to improve quality of the German bee breeding stock.

en.wikipedia.org...

Hello and this is good news about the Apis Mellifera Mellifera.

I do now have a beehive and will try and get a European dark bee colony.
One of the reasons it fell out of favour was due to the more agressive nature, but they tend to be hardier.

thanks for the info..

where do you live?

i have as it happens seen more black bees this year and one landed on my newspaper covered in pollen today..very sweet.

reply to post by thoughtsfull


sorry I didn't see your prior thread here

www.abovetopsecret.com...

it is very good thanks and great to see a native bee in a come back =]

Interesting, I didn't know mites affected bees... I found a picture of mites on a bee.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f927240dfdbd.jpg[/atsimg]

I hate mites... They're the worst thing ever

I agree that this is really important and we need a solution to the honeybee problem, but although we like to think so, we don't know everything about nature and evolution yet.

Who's to say that in 10 years time our meddling has far reaching consequences and renders the worlds crops un-usuable!?

I'm sure then we will blame some other parasite or global warming and then meddle some more.

Do not play the puppet master with nature, it is going to do more harm than good.

Ecologically, and agriculturally, this is a great achievement in my opinion. I'm relieved to know someone has done this. I've been concerned for some time regarding the news of colony collapse and other syndromes plaguing bee populations throughout the world. Hopefully this will prove successful and those problems will become part of the past.

On a more selfish note though, as someone who is horribly bee-phobic, the idea of "indestructible bees" is downright terrifying lol.

Originally posted by Nammu
Man, i got some crazy images there

Well done to this guy! If this is successful he should get a huge 'Look Who Helped Saved The World!' trophy. That was look so sweet on your mantlepiece.

But, i believe it's not only this mite causing the problem of Collony Collapse Disorder and there's plenty of cases of CCD where no mites can be found.

Definitely a step in the right direction by this guy though.

How does he get the bee sperm ? LOL

sry...

this is pretty cool though. At least he is trying to do something about it instead of just thinking of ways to do something.

Last thing I want to encounter is an indestructible bee.

Just saying.

reply to post by BANANAMONTANA


Your Welcome my hope is that somehow a diverse answer to this problem is forthcoming Since I really would hate to see all our eggs put in one basket.

I live in the Rape of Lewes, Sussex.. and have seen a number of European Dark/British Black this year, and one Queen has set up home in my garden which I hope will mean me not having to go into the garden with a brush pollinating my fruit bushes next year

But going by numbers there are only a few native colonies around here and I think these are the ones Sussex University has been trying to track as they might be good breeding stock, I also understand they are importing breeding stock from all over Europe to create a really healthy/hygienic strain, I have my fingers crossed they are successful.

I had heard from other bee keepers that opinions vary as to whether the British Black/European Dark is more aggressive.. I guess we'll have to wait and see as their numbers grow if they are/are not more aggressive.

thanks for the thread

Indestructable? I'm betting that my rolled up newspaper will still have the same effect on these guys as the ones we have now.

reply to post by BANANAMONTANA


I hope it works. Meaning of course, that I hope the mite really is the problem, and its not those pesticides that spread from one insect to the other, (like the type they use for termites here in the US to collapse the colony.)

Its a good thing either way. If colonies of his indestructible bees still collapse, it will help narrow down the other possibilities somewhat.

On one of the Jamie Oliver European tour cooking shows "Jamie Does", he visited a bee farm (it was in Greece, I think) and the bee breeder said that whenever he takes his bees away from the cell phone towers, they act normally. If he takes them to an area WITH cell phone towers, they go crazy, even to the point of dying off.

Ever wonder why bee populations are declining big time in heavily populated, high tech areas like California and Western Europe?

Originally posted by LucidDreamer85
[
How does he get the bee sperm ?

They use bee porn, little private rooms, and teeny tiny plastic cups.

The rest you have to envision on your own.