{"id":383,"date":"2025-12-08T11:01:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/temp.voralpenhonig.at\/?page_id=383"},"modified":"2026-03-22T16:16:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:16:59","slug":"varroaresistenz-2024","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/varroaresistenz-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Varroa resistance 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2024 was a very busy year for beekeeping. The honey harvest was excellent, both for blossom and forest honey. I began selecting some young colonies from 2023 for varroa resistance in the third week of July. The selection process was the same as in previous years. The selection data for six colonies are listed below.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Analysis of the selected populations 2024<\/strong>

The daily mite drop before treatment!
Bee colonies without Varroa resistance are almost beyond saving when the average daily mite drop is 40 mites, measured in mid- to late July. However, in my 2024 breeding and selection program, the average daily natural mite drop of the three best colonies is 138 mites. The actual infestation after treatment, however, averages 744 mites, with an average Varroa Resistance Index (VRI) of 5.56. Ideally, the index would be 1, meaning the natural daily mite drop would equal the actual infestation.
I doubt that genetics alone is responsible for this improvement in varroa resistance. I suspect that epigenetics (learned defense mechanisms) is involved. I've had this suspicion for some time. For about 10 years now, I've been making one or two splits each year from my breeding colonies, including bees from the breeding colony. Nature teaches us this: bee reproduction only occurs with a queen and bees from the swarm colony.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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In summary and as a supplement, the index values \u200b\u200bsince 2017<\/strong>:<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Discussion of the VRI measurements<\/strong>
In 2024, there was no increase in the average VRI measurement. I don't expect an improvement until many colonies with an index below 10 are present with their drones for mating. So the varroa resistance saga continues; I'm looking forward to it.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-383","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/383\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.voralpenhonig.at\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}