Varroa in Hawaii

[jean-marc]

Just got the call from my queen supplier that varroa has been found on one the Islands, the one where Waikiki (sp?) is. They found it in 4 hives (heavy infestation) in some nature conservatory.

Jean-Marc

[Pembinabee]

Haiwaii - Commiserations !

But Welcome to the "Club of the Infested".

[Panhandle Bee man]

Someone was illegally importing bees

[BerkeyDavid]

If I have my geography right that would be on the island of Oahu, the most industrialized island with the big navy base and Honolulu. I think the queen breeders are mostly on the big Island near Kona.

Still not good news. For them or us.

[jean-marc]

David, you get an A for your geography and indeed the queen breeders are on the Big Island. I've got a shipment of queens leaving today, hopefully there will be no delays or hangups.

Jean-Marc

[BerkeyDavid]

Good luck Jean-Marc, how many queens have you ordered? I know you are a pretty big operator, give us the details! I am sweating my first pollination deal, a whole 8 hives. It would be good to hear what you are up to this time of year!

Do you requeen all your hives or just get the queens to do splits?

[Aspera]

Maybe the varroa came from a container ship. I can't imagine that anyone would honestly want to import bees into Hawaii.

[hummingberd]

Maybe the varroa came from a container ship. I can't imagine that anyone would honestly want to import bees into Hawaii.

Aspera- Why not? I don't know anything about the bee business over there...

[Jeffzhear]

Aspera, I was thinking the same thing, container ships. Oahu is the commercial island so it wouldn't surprise me. Also, the NAVY base is there and when I was in the USN, I remember watching a swarm for months in the aft mast on my ship...

[BerkeyDavid]

A container ship was my first thought too. Lots of shipping into Honolulu.

[suprstakr]

They do ship sugar in in containers.What a place for bees

[summersetretrievers]

Hmm.......weren't there just plane loads of bee's coming through Hawaii to say California or other areas....
Cindy

[Axtmann]

What’s happening if a beekeeper ordered a queen via regular post in a normal envelope to get new blood in his colonies? It is easy to ship a small plastic cage with a queen and a few bees round the world. All you need is cut a little opening with a razor blade in the envelope for the air.
Dose the post check all letter mail from US main land to Hawaii?

[simplyhoney]

I grew up on Oahu and parents are still over there. My mom said that apparently several shipments of the Aussie packages stopped in Hawaii for various reasons over the past couple of years. She said this is one of their major leads. They have since burned all the colonies found in Manoa Valley with varroa. It only takes on pregnant female on one bee.

[Jim Fischer]

I wrote this on April 11:
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0704b&L=bee-l&T=0&P=10935

The distance from the site where varroa were first found to
Honolulu Airport (5 miles) forces me to wonder if any of those
"plane changing bees" from NZ might have escaped, flown towards
a light (assuming that they are still only allowed on planes
that land at night) and formed a swarm.

The proximity of the site to the Honolulu harbor is closer
(3 miles), but the length of even the fastest ocean voyage
to Hawaii from anywhere makes me wonder how a swarm could
survive that long. While an AHB colony certainly could set
up shop in a cargo container and put up enough stores to
survive the trip, this seems unlikely, as the varroa-infested
bees were not described as "defensive", and we have to give
AHB credit for expanding more quickly than varroa can.

Does anyone know someone involved in USDA APHIS at Honolulu
Airport that could be able to confirm/deny any "incidents"
in the transshipment of bees from overseas?

Alternative scenarios for the introduction of varroa to the
island of Oahu are welcome, but varroa can't be kept alive
for long away from bees, even in lab environments, so I think
we need to focus on how bees infested with varroa could have
gotten past the various plant/animal inspections, and thereby
rule out sources other than the transshipment of bees forced
upon Hawaii by APHIS as a part of the WTO process.

==============================

Also, this was contributed:
http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0704b&L=bee-l&D=0&T=0&P=13857

I have been advised by Dr. Medhat Nasr to relate these results to you regarding shipments of
honeybee queens from the Big Island of Hawaii after the new finding of varroa mite on the island
of Oahu, State of Hawaii.

These are the result of a recent inspection of honey bees apiaries on the Big Island of Hawaii used
for shipping queens to Canada and mainland US. All samples collected on April 9-10, 2007. Adult
honey bees were collected from the brood chambers and processed for varroa mite using the
alcohol shaking procedure. The distance between the Kona Queen to the Hawaiian Queen is about
57.2 km. This recent survey on the Kona side of the Big Island of Hawaii is to reinforce the
negative finding of varroa and tropilaelaps mites during my last survey in January 2007.

1) Kona Queen Company:
No varroa mite or tropilaelaps in Kona Queen samples [(honey bee sample size: two apiaries, 8
hives, 581 ± 107.2 workers per hive ( Mean ± SD)]

2) Big Island Queens:
No varroa mite or tropilaelaps in Big Island Queens samples. Big Island Queen apiaries are 4.8 km
south of Kona Queen.
(three yards, three apiaries, sample size: 470 ± 68.2 workers per hive)

3) Hawaiian Honeybees:
No varroa mite or tropilaelaps in Hawaiian Honeybee samples. Hawaiian Honey Bee apiary is 12.1
km south of Big Island Queen.
(one apiary, four hives, sample size: 563.8 ± 140.8 workers per hive)

4) Hawaiian Queens Company:
No varroa mite or tropilaelaps in Hawaiian Queen samples. Hawaiian Queen is 40.3 km from the
Hawaiian Honey Bee.
(one apiary, four hives, sample size: 421.5 ± 116.2 workers per hive).


Kona Queen and Hawaiian Queens companies are preparing shipments to Canada and we urgently
need your approval to proceed on these shipments.
We appreciate your effort to help us with the varroa mite situation.
Aloha,
Mohsen
_____________________________________________
Dr. Mohsen M. Ramadan
Exploratory Entomologist
State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture
Division of Plant Industry, Plant Pest Control Branch
1428 South King Street, Honolulu, HAWAII 96814 (USA)
Tel: (808) 973 9526
Fax: (808) 973 9533

[magnet-man]

Well the silver lining in this story is there will be some natural selection for more mite resistant stock. Unfortunately that is the long-term payoff and there is no short-term payoff.

[simplyhoney]

Jim,

Do you think they will keep varroa off of the Big Island? What would you recomend as far as quarentine for Oahu? or cargo going from Honolulu to the Big Island?

[jean-marc]

David and others who may be interested:

First I'm not that big an operator, I've lost 20 pounds since the season began. I sold the first 320 nucs lasdt week, part of a deal on a building. i've starter making the next 300. should be very close to done on tuesday. They will be shipped out 13 days from now. I've got 12-1300 hives going onto blueberries starting tomorrow. The bees are generally in good shape considering we've had a very wet spring, with little pollen coming in except for the last 2 weeks. Usually bees fly in Feb and March here with some pollen coming in, not this year.

I use these queens from Hawaii to make up nucs. I've got a few cells hatching on tuesday so mated queens are good for making up nucs. I like the folks from Big Island Queens, they always send them when they say they will and always try and make up any shortages that may come up.

I recieved my shipment on saturday last week instead of wednesday. This week will be back on track on wednesday.

All the best to everyone.

Jean-Marc