Lundén Resistant queens

The whole story so far on the page "More English and links":

www.saunalahti.fi/lunden/varroakertomus.html

The Lundén Resistant queens are the end result of a long development and breeding efforts. It all started 1996, when we found the first varroa mites. After cutting down the treatment little by little in 2001-2008, we stopped treating the bees.

And when I say "stopped treating", it also means, that there are no other measures taken against varroa: No broodless periods, no small size cells, no drone brood removal, no broodless nucs etc. The bees just have to stay alive and if they don't, I don't need that kind of bees.

The usual thing what has happened in this varroa resistance breeding is that the proclaimed results have not been verified elsewhere. That is why we sent 2009 some 50 queens to MTT Research Centre and 8 different beekeepers in Germany, Luxembourg, Austria and Finland. The queens were free of charge and there was only one request: that the hives should not be treated. There was of course huge difference in the conditions of hives and environmental circumstances, but our goal is to breed a bee, which is capable coping all over the world, so this was only an advantage for us. Biggest problem was to get results from the testers. People are busy and making notes and giving feedback is surprisingly difficult, even for professional researchers. The most valuable feedback came from two top bee breeders in Europe: Paul Jungels and Jürgen Brausse. When they told me, after evaluating the queens for two years, that some of my queens did not need any varroa treatment (in 2009 I purposely sent "good and less good" queens and of course big variations exist anyway) I was sure, that I had achieved something. My own results were confirmed.

The Bees

Our breeding stock is a mixture of Buckfast (from Sweden and Luxembourg), Finnish local bee, Primorsky (from Josef Koller in Germany), Elgon bees (trademark from Sweden) and South American bees from Colombia. The change from original Buckfast bees has been dramatic: At the moment when working my bees its sometimes impossible to do it without gloves. Sometimes you can open a hive without a veil, but for sure the bees will "buzz" around very lively. They land on your hand and may pull your hairs or just "snoop around". They gather on the hive entrance and search incoming bees carefully and sometimes violently. They groom other bees on the combs (glass hive observations) and the groomed bee folds her wings to help the grooming bee. The brood areas are full of holes, at least if there is a mite pressure from outside. The winter clusters are relatively small and the bees consume very little winterfeed (less than 10 kg).

The Hives

We use 18 mm wooden hives with no isolation. Frames have no wires and the size is 140 x 448 mm. We use 6 mm bee-space, the boxes are 146 mm high and 500 x 500 mm in other dimensions. There are 12 frames in each box, the normal wintering size is either 2 or 3 boxes. The hive bottoms are made of plywood, the hive cover is a 50 mm polyurethane sheet. I can easily make 100 bottoms (materials 4€/st) or 200 hive covers (materials 8€/st) a day. There are two hives on one hive stand, which are about 350 mm high. When working the bees, boxes are kipped on their rear or back ends, to make working easier.

The Methods

The three main things for successful beekeeping are: The bees need a good queen, enough food and room for the stores. Looking for the best sites is one of the most important works, too. In the Finnish weather, its important to make sure that enough air is circulating in the hive in the winter to keep it dry.

If all the above mentioned is done, its best to leave the bees themselves. Swarming is nothing to worry about, it happens so rarely, that there is no point doing anything. If American Foulbrood is found, shake the bees to empty combs or foundations and give them a new queen.

Our goal: The Best bees without treatment

Our vision: Beekeeping and honey production can only survive in the future if our products are of top quality and without any residues and if we take care of the diversity, disease resistance and strength of the honeybee. Therefore we have dedicated our breeding efforts totally to varroa resistance.

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