Bees in the news

[nursebee]

At work, some people have been telling me of some bee stories in the press. One relates to recent mite problems. I think that I know about varoa, but is there some other concern for bee pests? Is it something to do with osama/obama?

[Michael Bush]

Recently (in the last decade or so) there have Tracheal Mites, Varroa Mites and Small Hive Beetles.

Also, apparently some of the terrorist organizations are involved in the middle east honey business.

[Jim Fischer]

Frequently local reporters stumble upon a
beekeeper, and find him or her an irresistible
"human interest" story.

The beekeeper will always mention the decline
of beekeeping due to the pests and diseases,
so it is reported as if it were a recent thing,
rather than a problem over a decade old.

The local papers around here have done 4 or 5
stories on "me", and they were all pretty much
the same, except for one fellow, who decided
to contrast the high-tech (and at the time, hush-hush) 21st-Century techno work at the lab,
surrounded by trappings of the 19th, if not the
18th Century. We had to move a hive over to the
dish farm so he could set up the shot he wanted
of "High Tech/Low Tech" - the bucolic beekeeper,
working his hive in the peace and quiet of the
countryside while only feet away, gigs of data
were streaming up to satellites, blah, blah, blah.

At least he was original. [img]smile.gif[/img]

If you think about it, bees would make excellent
dispersal tools for all sorts of nasty bio-weapons
targeted at crops, but I doubt that terrorists
would go to all the trouble of using bees when
small planes could carry much more payload, and
be easier to transport, deal with, and hide in
a crowd of other small planes at the various
regional airports where they tend to congregate.

[Morris]

jfischer, Bees are also a great way to disperse biocontrol organisms like Metarhizium anisopliae, for the control of varroa. The bees will apparently spread this fungus from hive to hive as they naturally drift.

Speaking of this fungus, do you know if Metarhizium anisoplia strain designation ESC1 is the same as M. anisopliae strain # 5630?

Also, since the temperature growing parameters for this wonderfull fungus are so tight (80 F. +or- 1 F)how is it that they can do so well in the hive where the normal fluctuations within the hive body are greater than 1 F, and I would imagine that a relatively small portion of the hive is 80 F.

[Michael Bush]

Maybe this temperature requirement is related to some sucesses and some failures.

[Morris]

Michael, you are correct about partial positive growth. Even in an incubator where temps are uneven, there is heavy growth in the 80 degree F. area, and little or no growth in areas just a little warmer or cooler. So the question remains, how does it prosper in a hive?