View Full Version : Just a newbee thought...
newbee 101
10-05-2004, 05:13 AM
Instead of finding a chemical to KILL the varroa, why not some research on stopping or interfering them from breeding, like birth control pills? If they can't make babies, problem solved. Just a newbee thought......
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"To bee or not to bee, that is the question"
Michael Bush
10-05-2004, 08:04 AM
Part of the problem isn't just them reproducing in YOUR hive, but your bees bringing back thousands from other hives that are crashing. So getting stable system where the mites don't reproduce faster than they die, isn't a complete solution becuase it still doesn't deal with the influx of mites from other hives.
I think this is the leading cause of problems with things like FGMO. It helps you get a stable system and if there aren't a lot of hives crashing around you, it seems to work fine. But if there are hives crashing you end up with a lot of mites from outside your hive.
Basically small cell reduces the reproductive rate to enough to stablize it in the hive by shortening the pre and post capping times. But I do still worry about those influxes of mites from crashing hives.
bjerm2
10-05-2004, 08:46 AM
MB is correct. If it were that easy then the mite would long ago be extinct. This time of year the bees are testing other hives to see if they are able to defend their honey stores. If the hive is weak with thousands of mites then guess what, as your bees go in to get the honey they also bring back the mites. By treating them religiously this time of year with whatever method you chose (I use FGMO with thymol in it till the bees no longer can fly) you will keep the population of the mites low every time you treat the hive. Some beekeepers use OXy acid once more just after the final frost. This will also kill the mites since it burns their moth parts and some of the legs. This will cause the mites to starve to death. Do that when there is no more brood in the hive.
Dan
[This message has been edited by bjerm2 (edited October 05, 2004).]
I still think it's beekeepers that cause the mite problem to linger. By keeping your bees healthy they will thrive and cast off swarms that will grow for a while and then become a new feral colony infested with mites. Without the beekeepers, the entire bee population in an area would crash and take the mites with them.
We need to either isolate our bees from the feral population, of find a way to treat the whole community. Isolation will be tough but may be feasible in a few years. There is already a device using a special entrance door and video camera to prevent your cat from bringing birds and mice into the house. A similar device could be built to screen bees returning to the hive. Moving into some desolate area that doesn't have a single tree within 10 miles (like the middle of Wyoming) or finding an island that is already mite free will also help isolate your bees.
Treating the community involves finding all the feral hives within a 3 mile radius and either removing or treating them. Another possibility might be to weaken the feral colonies to force them to crash while you have your own hives locked up so they don't bring back the mites.
Michael Bush
10-05-2004, 11:21 AM
>Treating the community involves finding all the feral hives within a 3 mile radius and either removing or treating them. Another possibility might be to weaken the feral colonies to force them to crash while you have your own hives locked up so they don't bring back the mites.
Then again, those surviving feral bees might be the only hope we have of honey bees that can survive the mites.
Taking into account that there are no native honey bees in North America, the feral bees will be genetically indistinguishable from the managed hives. If there is a genetic trait in the population that will make bees resistant to the mite it will be as likely to exist in managed hives.
There are other factors that may prevent the mite population explosion in some hives. The theory that the mite explosion is caused by raiding of collapsing hives sounds feasible. Each raiding trip a bee makes could return several mites. Dividing the honey stores of a hive by the carrying capacity of the bee gives the number of bee-trips needed and the number of mites that could be brought back from 1 raid. If a healthy hive is already filled to capacity with stores and has no room to expand it simply won't be engaged in raids so won't be bringing back the mites.
If there is a specific time when the feral hives are likely to crash it might be a good time to reduce the space in your hives to keep your bees at home.
Maybe I'll work on a sugar-roll feeder to knock the traveling mites off foragers while feeding the bees in the spring and fall.
Michael Bush
10-05-2004, 06:08 PM
>Taking into account that there are no native honey bees in North America, the feral bees will be genetically indistinguishable from the managed hives.
I've seen studies and fearl bees are not indistinguishable. Which brings up the question, but not the answer, are there native feral bees. But assuming there aren't the survivors are still the ones you want. When AFB hit American bees most of them died. The ones we have now are the survivors or the ones that were nursed through with antibiotics. I think we NEED the survivors. We have a lot less AFB now. So the survivors had the genetics to survive. The Feral bees have already taken the losses to sort out the survivors.
>If there is a genetic trait in the population that will make bees resistant to the mite it will be as likely to exist in managed hives.
No, it won't. At least not on any large scale. The managed hives have been babied through surviving. No one was babying the feral hives. If they survived it was either luck or genetics. If a managed hive survived it was usually chemicals.
>If there is a specific time when the feral hives are likely to crash it might be a good time to reduce the space in your hives to keep your bees at home.
I suppose a dearth seems to be when the crashes happen. Those are either in the middle of Summer or the end of the Fall flow here, usually.
>Maybe I'll work on a sugar-roll feeder to knock the traveling mites off foragers while feeding the bees in the spring and fall.
I'm not sure what you're describing. Maybe it's something like this? I've noticed when feeding pollen mixed with substitute the bees roll in it a lot and I wonder if it doesn't disloge a lot of mites. I also wonder if the bees are aware of this at some level. Like chickens dust to get the lice off.
[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited October 05, 2004).]
>No one was babying the feral hives. If they survived it was either luck or genetics.
Until the mite levels reach the mass extinction levels the feral hives can survive by swarming. What's known about mite populations is that it takes 4-5 years for the mite levels to increase to lethal levels. In this time the hive could throw off a swarm which may have lower mite levels than the parent hive because the mites would preferentially be in the brood cells.
> >If there is a specific time when the feral hives are likely to crash it might be a good time to reduce the space in your hives to keep your bees at home.
>I suppose a dearth seems to be when the crashes happen. Those are either in the middle of Summer or the end of the Fall flow here, usually.
The dearth would be consistent with a raiding theory. If a hive crashes during a dearth, a neighboring hive can discover the weakening hive and begin raiding the stores and bringing back adult mites. These harvested mites will immediately invade the brood in the new hive and within a week or two a whole new generation of mites will emerge. The new hive is going to crash within weeks even if they were otherwise resistant and the cycle will repeat. This domino effect will run rampant through the population leaving only the hives that were lucky enough to not have the capacity to raid another hive.
This is just a hypothesis of a possible model based on my limited knowledge of bees and mites. More info on the life cycle and behaviors of the mites would be useful in refining this model
bjerm2
10-06-2004, 06:37 AM
Problem with making your hives smaller so they don't rob is that bees no mater what you do will hoard. It is their nature, they will bring in honey, nectar what ever and not care if their is no room in the hive.
Now please correct me if I'm wrong, does not a strong hive give off swarms and not a weak one? Strong meaning 30-60 thousand individuals? If the hive has that strength all by itself then is there not a possibility that they show some kind of resistance to the mite? Any smaller swarms say 6,000+/- or so bees has not a chance to become a sustainable hive without intervention by a bee keeper.
Now if there is a dearth of honey does not the hive cut back on its brood?
Dan
If a swarm starts out with a very low mite level it can grow faster than the mite population. Maybe this requires some degree of mite resistance but not necessarily more that the managed bees we already have. When the colony reaches the capacity of the hive it will throw off 1 or more swarms. My theory is that the mites would prefer to be reproducing and so would be mostly on the brood. Therefore the new swarm would carry very few mites and can establish a new hive. In this way the feral populations can survive even though the individual hives will crash every few years.
When a hive begins to crash it means that the brood is saturated with mites and the losses to the mites is too great for the hive to maintain it's work force. During this time the hive will continue to raise more mites than bees until the hive is too week to repel raiders.
>Now if there is a dearth of honey does not the hive cut back on its brood?
Probably. But if honey is coming in from a raid will this promote new brood rearing?