Shortening and Sugar Patties?

[Loren]

A friend loaned me a copy of "The Beekeeper's Handbook" by Diana Samataro and Alphonse Avitabile, and I think it's the best book I've read on the subject so far.
Anyway, one of the treatments for tracheal mites they mention is putting a 1/4 lb patty made of vegetable shortening and sugar on the top bars at the center of the broodnest. I assume the bees eat it. The bood says that a patty "kept in the colony all the time seems to protect against these mites".
So A) has anybody tried this?
B) good results? no results?
c) how exactly is it supposed to work? I can see FGMO stimulating grooming behavior to knock varroa mites off, and menthol or thymol fumes getting rid of tracheal mites, but shortening and sugar just doesn't seem logical for tracheal mites.
????????

[Michael Bush]

>So A) has anybody tried this?

Yes.

>B) good results? no results?

It will keep the tracheal mites from reproducing. If you are fogging FGMO you won't need it. If you are using menthol for Tracheal mites you won't need it. If you are raising small cell bees you won't need it. If you have tracheal mite resitant bees you probably won't need it.

>c) how exactly is it supposed to work?

Tracheal mites have to find young bees to reproduce. They cannot reproduce in older bees. The grease disguises the smells that the T-mites home in on and they can't tell the difference between the old bees and the young bees so most of them fail to reproduce and the number of T-mites falls.

[mark williams]

You have not said what part of the country you are from.But in an area that has small hive beetles they do not recommend using grease patties,said it attracts the beetles.
As far as I've heard menthol is the only proven Med-that will kill the T-mites.>>>>Mark

[timg]

Yes I have done this. The thought is that the bees will remove the patty from the hive and become slightly slippery in the process. The sugar entices them to it. When the bees are a little greasy the mites have a harder time attaching to the adult bees.
Good luck,

Tim
happybeehoney.net
T

[jfischer]

>If you are using menthol for Tracheal mites you won't need it.

I disagree. Crisco patties are nearly free, and is one of the
few things that can be put in the hive even when supers are on.
As T-mites cannot possibly become "resistant" to Crisco, they
are cheap insurance to prevent T-mite infestations. When in
doubt, and certainly for new packages or captured swarms, I'd
strongly suggest tossing them on.

Menthol can only be used when supers are off. If used when supers
are on, one ends up with honey that tastes and smells strongly
of menthol.

> If you are raising small cell bees you won't need it.

This is a new and surprising claim for small-cell bees.
How would small-cell bees resist T-mite infestation any
better than "large-cell bees" from the same basic genetic
stock, given that tracheal mites infest bees after they
emerge from their brood cells?

> If you have tracheal mite resitant bees you probably won't need it.

And it is a shame that anyone still sells queens and packages
that are not T-mite resistant. What's worse is that no one has
named names, and embarrassed those selling T-mite susceptible bees
into doing something about it.

[Michael Bush]

>> Michael said: If you are raising small cell bees you won't need it.

>Jim said: This is a new and surprising claim for small-cell bees.

I'd hardly call it new. I'm not aware of any time that small cell was being put forth as a solution to the varroa problems that it was not also being claimed to be useful for Tracheal mites. I don't know how long Dee Lusby has been saying it, but here's a quote from the POV section of this site that I believe was published in 1999 and maybe before that:

"QUESTION: If one believes that Tracheal mites are historically external parasitic mites on honeybees that were for centuries non-threatening, and the only place these mites can get into honeybees to do damage is through the first thoracic spiracle on the thorax of a honeybee, and changing the size of a comb cell bigger would therefore change the size of the thorax bigger and consequently enlarge the entrance of the first thoracic spiracle on a honeybee, then why would bigger be better, if it triggers an attack by parasitic external mites to today turn them into internal parasitic mites, and is there evidence to back this conclusion up? I believe that there is ample evidence to back this conclusion up, especially when it can be shown that retrogression back onto smaller natural comb size of 5.0mm stabilizes the death curve and further retrogression back onto 4.9mm comb size foundation further eliminates accompanying secondary diseases..."

"On 5.0mm we stabilized with tracheal mites and varroa mites with our hives not dying due to mites..." Dee Lusby
http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/part6.htm

[Michael Bush]

>This is a new and surprising claim for small-cell bees.

Here's an article on cell size and T-mites dated 1996 about a study done starting in 1989 by Ericson based on work already done by Lusby's.

So that takes it back at least 15 years.

[jfischer]

Has anyone other than the Lusbys reported
this?

Dee has said many different and unusual
things about her bees, and about bees in
general, but has never explained basic
things like how she is able to keep
non-AHB hives in an area that has been
firmly in the heart of AHB territory since
the early 1990s.

[Michael Bush]

>Has anyone other than the Lusbys reported
this?

First, I was merely addressing the statement that this was a "new claim" when it is quite obviously at least 15 years old.

Quite a few people are doing small cell with no treatments whatsoever. I don't know of any who are doing any scientific survey to measure it's effectivness on T-mites.

>Dee has said many different and unusual
things about her bees, and about bees in
general, but has never explained basic
things like how she is able to keep
non-AHB hives in an area that has been
firmly in the heart of AHB territory since
the early 1990s.

Except everyone who has visited and works her bees say they are quite gentle. So she must be.