Thread by @HarperHives

LET the ISBA live tweeting commence! View of the soon to be filled conference room at beautiful McHenry County College. Full day of speakers starting at 9 with Brian Rennecker from the @ILAgriculture

Lots of good talks scheduled. Which ones are you most excited about? #ISBA #ApisM #Beekeeping

Side note: conference chairs probably some of the most comfortable this posterior has sat in. 10/10

Just over half an hour before the first talk. Lots of people registering, many donuts being eaten.

Did you register early? If so, enjoy your hat!

T minus 15 until go time. #ISBA #ApisM #Beekeeping

Reason #458 why you're single: you attend beekeeping conferences in your spare time.

5 minutes!

Coffee being poured, seats filling up fast in the main conference room here at MCC

ISBA Northern Region Director Larry Krengel introducing today's speakers and events.

Dave Hill, president of Northern Illinois Beekeepers Association leads the group in the Pledge of Allegiance and turns they mic over to the president of ISBA

15 charter members to 1500 charter members of ISBA. 22 affiliate organizations of ISBA. Goes to show the tremendous growth of beekeeping in Illinois

First speaker is Eleanor who operates 40 hives. Brian couldn't make it due to flooding in southern IL

Topics to be discussed: IDOA Apiary inspections, winter losses, and the battle vs varroa.

Winter losses variable- 80%! in northern region and 25%! in the south. Spring 2019-really wet, affecting colony buildup and nectar collection. Black locust just starting in Northern IL

Main message: think about SUPERS. Heavy nectar flow soon/now

IDOA inspections: High small hive beetles, low mites, nosema, and EFB. No AFB. Overall most colonies ok.

SHB started high, has dropped a lot.

Tracheal mites found in KY, worry that it may come to IL

Since Jan 1: 282 new beekeepers registered! 32697 colonies in 2019, in IL. 5997 Apiaries

So an average of 5 or so hives per Apiary.

Looks like inspectors worried about EFB. 82 colonies diagnosed to date. 74 in entire 2018!

EFB- what to look for: spotty brood pattern BUT look at individual cells - discolored larvae, little to no segmentation, dull appearance.

Call Apiary inspector to collect sample for EFB analysis

Bottom line: think about EFB, if suspicious call inspectors. If diagnosed, get medicine and treat

Really neat collaboration with #UIUC on varroa mite count and data collection. ALL Apiaries qualify- no minimum # of hives.

Big push for data acquisition and analysis of hive metrics- weight and mite loading.

Check out Beescape.org for more info

Going through approved miticides: Api life, apiguard, oxalic acid-dribble and vapor, etc. Small Cell beeswax?, powered sugar, screened bottom boards.

Question on most effective non-chemical mite treatment. Answer: Brood break! (crowd laughs) but seriously

Thymol and oxalic acid recommended as chemical treatments

Next up: Jerry Hayes!

Fresh from a talk to the Oklahoma beekeepers association. His intro? "You all are a lot better looking than they are!"

Illinois 1. Oklahoma 0

His talk is on Confirmation Bias - without facts you cannot have cooperation. Talking about our need to be bee ambassadors to all those who are not as informed in IL and across the US

Introducing confirmation bias. We'll see how he ties this back to beekeeping.

A few slides in, discussing examples of confirmation bias.

Showing us Beeinformed partnership survey results. Total annual losses fluctuate from 30% to 45% from 2010-2018.

Average winter losses since 2017: 45% for backyard beekeepers and only 25% for industry. More knowledge = less losses

67% didn't know why they lost hives. Hayes states this is unacceptable. 55% of respondents say starvation was the cause. Hayes compares this with not feeding a family pet or a child.

Says those who didn't know why they lost hives should be banned from beekeeping. Pretty hot take

Notes a 13 percentage point decrease in average winter loss if beekeeper monitored for varroa throughout season (44 vs 30)

^ should be "treated" . No statistical difference if just monitored

Average winter loss per beekeeper as a function of varroa product use: 0 - 52%, 1-40%, 2-37%, 3+ 31%. Takeaway? Need to use strong treatments for varroa.

Grand number: 45.2% loss reported by hobbyists.

39.8% had less than 5 years of experience.

Looks like lack of knowledge and laziness(?) is driving colony loss

Great graph on varroa and bee losses while using pesticides. mdpi.com/journal/insects 9 May 2018, toxicity of selected acaricides to honey bees. Remember--ANY treatment for varroa will kill SOME bees

Hayes: "Three words I want you to remember--Varroa, varroa, varroa."

Hayes wants package and queen sellers to go out of business. It would mean beekeepers are doing a good job treating for varroa and managing hives.

Interesting throw back to his Monsanto days. Talking about pesticide sprays and advancements in pesticide use.

Tangent now on the 40 million acres of grass and lawn in IL. Wants to covert some to pollinator habitat. Says would save A LOT on chemicals and water use.

Hayes: We should not tolerate [chemical lawn treatment]. That's stupid

Plug for the honeybee health coalition. Ending his talk with a picture of grocery store with and without honeybee pollinated fruits and vegetables. #pollinators #ApisM

Questions for Hayes now. Q: why does IL have high losses historically? A: Probably because lots of beekeepers report and we have a transparent system.

Super interesting fact. 1 million acres of Almonds. Need 2 million hives. USA has 2.5-2.6 million hives.

So >76% of the total amount of hives in the US go to CA for almonds each year!

Hayes: The almond industry will not be denied.

Q: how can we have lower losses? A: try to remove stress (building indoor wintering areas), "but until we can learn to control varroa, we'll be having this conversation forever"

Q: what's the status of the RNA work? A: wasn't working well. Didn't pursue

Finishing up questions, heading unto first break.

What are razorback queens?

Next talk loaded and ready to go. 4 min to go time

Dr. Keith Delaplane- great into. Can someone find a cartoon with a knight and a queen discussing the self sacrifice behavior of a worker bee?

KD: "Extravagant altruism" of worker bees. This is a problem to Charles Darwin's grand idea-evolution and its ties to geography

Motivating his talk with words on Mendel and Darwin. How can we explain the altruistic behavior of honeybees?

Hamilton, J Theoretical Biology, 1964, 7, 1-16. THE seminal paper for social insect behavior

Cost < benefit * relatedness of individuals

Only if this is true, can altruistic behavior fit in with Darwinian genetics.

Hamilton's rule. Kin selection theory. Cool stuff

Put another way, "I'd lay down my life for two brothers or 8 cousins"

2 sister bees share 75% of genes ( more than humans' 50%). "Supersisters" stay in hive and help Mother

Bio theme: lower levels clump together to make more complicated higher levels. That's life!

How did we get from an organism to a superorganism? Starts with swapping and sharing of roles, a sort of "life insurance". Ensures highest chance of survival.

Division of labor seems to be an example of emergent behavior NOT a product of evolution.

So this incipient division of labor is a product of small character idiosyncrasies. Huh, interesting

Honestly pretty incredible that a baby bee's diet determines whether she becomes a worker or queen.

Other topics that help to explain altruism: egg policing (not strictly done, but done with pheromones by Queen to suppress ovary production in workers) and queen promiscuity (helps ensure genetic diversity and robust egg laying)

The buzz about bees -book plug

Other effects of superorganism organization: each actor makes local decisions. No sophisticated input from environment required.

Comb building - another example of emergent behavior. Random and organic. Has to deal with bees' need to move around.

Essentially, emergent behavior explains A LOT. Physics explains A LOT. The superorganism facilitates emergent behavior. Bees don't often rationally plan or design.

Why do worker bees accept Queens? (i.e. you buy a bee and put her in a hive). Because selfishness has never benefitted bees in the hive.

Super interesting comments on problems with the superorganism- cancer and mutiny. That is, laying workers and selfish Queens (i.e. stinging other queens)

Last bits of KD talk: cull out old combs, feed more and better, try for high genetic diversity.

And we're back! Time to raffle off the nucs

Introduced to Tim May, commercial beekeeper in Harvard IL and an intro to ABF

ABF = American Beekeeping Federation FYI. Represents all levels of beekeeping.

Rather long video.

ABF was behind nixing the "added sugar" requirement on honey labels. Also currently lobbying for more transparent made in USA honey labeling.

Big news: ABF conference in Schaumburg. Jan 8-11 2020 Really good keynotes planned, over 90 speakers, breakout sessions, a banquet. Sounds great!

Dr. Delaplane up next, again. Hope round two is as good as round one.

"Breeding bees superorganismally"

KD: Not just a bunch of bugs doing their own reproduction.

KD talking about chromosomes and DNA. Haploid vs Diploid

Hemizygous vs heterozygous explanation. Poor brood pattern= inbred bees, poor generics

KD: We have not had the genetic revolution against the varroa mite we had hoped for. Tough to breed bees against varroa.

Throwback to Midnight and Starline bees? Apparently formed by crossing two severely inbred lines. Gas the queen with CO2, lays only drones, use drone semen to fertilize queen's eggs. So she effectively fertilizes herself.

We're in the weird part of the Conference ladies and gentlemen

Now talking about Laidlaw and Page system for breeding bees.

Seems complicated. O_o.

Essentially taking two steps forward and one step back each generation. Taking 10% favorable genetics/queens and mating with rest of 90% of drones each generation.

Here's something neat: Drones follow the same course in DCAs (measured in miles) due to landmarks and horizons. Huh

Tangent about Leprechauns now. Mhmm

Average DCA contains drones from over 200 colonies! Source: 1970s German paper

Why multiple mating? Bc more genetic diversity. More genetic diversity = more specialists

Species average for number of matings during a flight: 12. Records: 40, 77, and 28. BUT after only 6, the queen picks up 90% of available genetic diversity. So why have so much sex? The rare allele model.

Not all traits are heritable. Life or death traits aren't heritable. Traits that are more optional are more likely to be heritable. Traits that are special and necessary will be rare and recessive.

KD: some of these really rare and cool alleles will be rare and recessive. Explains why the queen will strive for so many matings, maybe the next one will be the golden ring.

And that's my battery! Highly recommend the ISBA conference in the future. Twas fun