Feelings Aren’t Facts in Beekeeping with Hope as a Breeding Strategy !!

Lately I keep hearing more and more beekeepers claiming that after stopping Varroa treatments for a year or two, their bees have somehow “become VSH” and are now naturally resistant.

“They’re uncapping brood.”

“They’re removing mites.”

“My bees adapted.”

And honestly… I think we need to slow down a little before jumping to conclusions.

Because feelings are not facts in beekeeping.

And hope, by itself, is not a breeding strategy.

True Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) bees did not appear overnight through wishful thinking. Resistant populations are usually the result of either:

careful selective breeding over multiple generations, or intense long-term natural selection where enormous colony losses occurred before stable resistance traits began emerging.

That process takes time.

A lot of time.

And perhaps this is the part many people underestimate: the first truly significant observations of naturally resistant unmanaged bee populations often appeared only after many generations of intense selection pressure following Varroa infestation.

Not one season.

Not two seasons.

And certainly not because someone stopped treating one spring and suddenly saw a few uncapped cells.

Nature does not work that fast.Especially with complex traits like mite resistance.

If your colonies originated from standard commercial stock, imported packages or non-resistant local populations, and you have not been systematically requeening with resistant genetics or breeding selectively from proven survivor colonies over multiple generations, then it is highly unlikely your bees magically transformed into fully resistant VSH stock within a short period of time.

Could selection pressure begin acting?

Of course.

Could some colonies display slightly stronger hygienic tendencies than others?

Absolutely.

But that is not the same thing as suddenly developing stable, heritable resistance.

And this is where things become scientifically interesting.

Resistance to Varroa is not controlled by one simple “magic gene.” Honey bee resistance appears to involve multiple behaviours working together simultaneously:

hygienic behaviour,

uncapping and recapping brood,

interruption of mite reproduction,

grooming behaviour,

brood cycle timing,

colony dynamics,

and probably other mechanisms we still do not fully understand.

In other words, bees are not evolving one single trick.

They are combining many different existing behaviours , behaviours that originally evolved for entirely different reasons, into combinations capable of slowing mite reproduction enough for the colony to survive.

That is a far more complicated process than many people realize.And honestly, even professional breeding programs struggle with it.

Because even if a breeder develops highly resistant queens, those queens still mate openly with local drones carrying unknown genetics. Resistance traits can dilute quickly if the surrounding drone population does not also carry supportive genetics.

Real-world genetics are messy.

There is no perfectly controlled mating system floating magically across the countryside.

And another thing that creates confusion is this:

All honey bee colonies already display some degree of hygienic behaviour.

All of them.

Workers naturally uncap, inspect and remove brood for many different reasons: disease, dead brood, fungal infections, damaged larvae, temperature issues, parasitic stress and other abnormalities.

So when a beekeeper suddenly notices uncapped brood after stopping treatments, it does not automatically mean: “My bees evolved VSH.”

Sometimes it simply means the colony is responding to stress.

And that distinction matters enormously.

Because uncapped brood can appear in many situations unrelated to stable Varroa resistance:

Chalkbrood

Parasitic Mite Syndrome (PMS)

Bald brood

European Foulbrood

Stonebrood

chilled brood,

damaged brood,

or general hygienic removal behaviours.

The bees already possess the biological machinery for hygienic behaviour. The real question is whether that behaviour is strong enough, consistent enough and genetically established enough to actually suppress Varroa reproduction across generations.

And those are two very different things.

I think modern beekeeping sometimes suffers from a deep desire to believe we have discovered shortcuts.We desperately want to believe our bees have “adapted” because adaptation feels hopeful. It feels exciting. It validates our management choices. Nobody enjoys the idea that genuine resistance may require years of losses, difficult selection and large-scale breeding effort.

But biology does not care about optimism.

Nature responds to selection pressure, inheritance, survival and time.

Not internet enthusiasm.

This does not mean treatment-free beekeeping is impossible. There are absolutely populations around the world demonstrating meaningful resistance traits developed through breeding and natural selection. Some are incredibly impressive.

But claiming resistance responsibly requires evidence across multiple generations, stable survival patterns and careful observation not simply spotting a few uncapped cells after discontinuing treatments.

Because in the end, one of the most dangerous things in beekeeping is confusing what we hope is happening… with what is actually happening.

So before celebrating sudden “treatment-free success,” perhaps we should ask ourselves one uncomfortable question:

Are we truly observing resistance…

…or are we simply seeing what we want to see?

— Evangelia Mavridis

References & Further Reading

Varroa Sensitive Hygiene

Varroosis

The Biology of the Honey Bee

Research on hygienic behaviour, mite resistance and selective breeding within Entomology and Genetics.

Bee brood disease reference resource: [University of Arkansas Bee Brood Conditions Guide]

(https://beehealth.uada.edu/assets/pages/beebroodconditions.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com)