SHB and statistics on treatments

[Michael Bush]

http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/PDFs/beeaware103.pdf

The first article of interest here is that keeping the humid lower than 50% in the honey house prevented SHB eggs from hatching. Makes you wonder if good ventilation in a hive might help in the hive too, but anyway, I thought it was significant for those dealing with SHB and trying to run a honey house.

The second article of interest is at the end where the statistics of a survey of treating and not treating with various treatments was correlated to colony survival. The survival rate using Apistan was lower than when not using it. None of the treatments look to be all that effective by this survey.

"We consider Varroa mites to be the most important malady for beekeepers to control to increase overwintering success. This survey points out that our standard treatment of Apistan was not entirely an effective treatment either season as losses were heavier for those using it compared to those not electing to use the miticide."


[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited October 12, 2004).]

[JohnBeeMan]

I wonder how many of the study participants actually used multiple options in their treat approach. Due to this complexity that was not addressed I found some of the data inconclusive.

In the part about pollen for allergies, I would have liked to have seen something about the use of honey and not just straight pollen for the allergy treatment claims. I have customers asking about this when they buy honey and I find that I can neither confirm nor deny the effectiveness of honey for allergy treatments. I always say something like "That's what they say."

[Michael Bush]

In some ways it's less than scientific since it's just a survey. On the other hand this is where the "rubber meets the road". These are real beekeepers trying to keep their bees alive reporting what the results were when they did what they believed were the proper treatments or not doing them.