Checkmite vs Queens

[Terry Gr]

What is the effect of checkmite in queens? I have noticed a general decrease in the quality of the queens coming out of California over the last couple of years. does not matter which supplier. Other beekeepers have noticed the same thing. we are blaming it on the cumaphos residue buildup in the wax affecting the genetics of the queen. :confused:

[Antero]

checkmite in queens


http://members.aol.com/queenb95/beekeeping21st.html


Terry

[D. Murrell]

Hi Guys,

Studies have been conducted and were published in the bee mags in the last couple of years. Beeswax queen cups were contaiminated with this pesticide at varying concentrations. If I recall correctly, some of the concentrations tested were a magnitude below the legal allowable limits.

Standard grafting practices were used and the results were tabulated. The few queens that survived were measured and those that eventually mated were tracked.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but very few survived the graft. I think it was in the 10% to 20% range. And those that hatched were under weight and had problems mating. Those few that mated were quickly superceded.

When checkmite first came out, a southern queen producer reported these kinds of results. He was quite upset that the government didn't check for these effects before approving this pesticide. And before his equipment became contaiminated.

I had a similar personal experience. As a sideline business, I raised queens and cells for large commercial beekeepers using their stock and equipment. One beekeeper, who used checkmite, wanted me to raise some cells and I was reluctant to do so. He said he had a yard that hadn't been treated with checkmite. So I agreed to raise a few thousand. After the first graft, I knew something was drastically wrong. Out of 600 grafts in the first batch,less than a dozen took!

I think he got a little confused about which yards had what in them. Or maybe he should have taken more saftey precautions when handling the strips :>)

When I asked him about it, He said he had contacted a California queen producer who uses checkmite. That producer said checkmite didn't affect the queens.

I think anyone who uses checkmite in their hives is going to have some very nasty consequences down the road with not only their queens but with overwintering, contaiminated wooden ware, etc.

Clean honey can be produced, in quantity, in South America. Utimately, I think, honey will be sold on a two tiered basis, clean honey for human consumption and industrial honey. Clean honey will command a premium price. Industrial honey will be ranked with corn syrup or maybe even below it where contaimination is a factor.

Regards
Dennis

[Jim Fischer]

If you look through the citations in current
papers, the issue of "queen viability"
impact from formic acid and CheckMite
has been known to be very negative for
years.

Here in Virginia, Keith Tignor (now the state
apiarist) and Rick Fell of VA Tech did some
studies years ago with some fairly scary and
groundbreaking results. They used formic and
CheckMite on colonies "as directed", and then
looked at the impact on queen development and
mating. Serious numbers of queens were "lost"
or superceeded, far more than could be explained
by any natural process, with BOTH CheckMite
and formic. Many queens apparently "failed
to return" from mating flights at all, leading
one to wonder if their basic navigational skills
were somehow impacted.

Apistan-treated colonies had far fewer such
problems, more in line with what one would expect
from natural causes of "queen failure". CheckMite
and formic (as applied at that time) had about the
same negative impact.

While their study did not narrow any of this down
to done-specific impacts, the current thinking is
that dones are the ones who are "cause" of all
this, and that the specific problem is infertility
of drones and low sperm counts.

(One of the weird things about being a beekeeeper
is that one must modify one's spam filter
to allow messages that mention "sperm",
"queens", etc.)

[D. Murrell]

Hi Guys,

It might be interesting to note that some essential oils have the same kind of effect on queen navigation. I've seen queens, returning from a mating flights,roaming around the outside of hives treated with wintergreen oil. They just couldn't find the entrance inspite of the bees providing some guidance. I wonder if the thymol based products produce the same kind of effects?

Regards
Dennis