Forrest, writing as sailingcat on 16 Nov 2000 09:30 AM wrote:
A few questions. Has anyone placed mites in the frig to see how long they live? Better still, place live bees with mites in the frig. Will the mites live or drip off? At what temperature? In the winter, has anyone checked a brood nest to see if there are mites on the outside bees or are they on bees at the center of the ball where the temperature is higher?
Reply:
Well, Forrest, to answer your question I will have to use some imformation written by Dr Ingemar Fries, Bee Division, swedish Univ of Agric Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden written as Varroa in Cold Climates in the book Living with Varroa, edited by Andrew Matheson from the Proceeding of an IBRA Symposium in London, 21 November 1992.
From Dr Fries we learn that,in spite of the limited time for reproduction in temperate climates varroa has proved to build up population levels that are detrimental to bee colonies; and that varroa may stay as phoretic mites on the adult bees for months and still be ready to reproduce later.
I have been told by friends visiting from Sweden that this period can be sometimes 5-6 months long, so you might have the bees and mites in there a long time, with the mites probably outliving the bees.
This fact is further brought home by Dr Fries in the same paper when he stated that, the sealed drone combs can be burnt or frozen to kill the mites. If the combs are frozen they can be reused as the bees will clean out dead frozen brood, especially if the brood is uncapped with a knife before the combs are returned to the hive. He further stated that however, the drone cocoon is thcker than the worker cocoon, so some of the mites may survive the treatment recommended for worker brood combs.
In other words before the mites freeze and die the bees and any larvae or pupae are dead. Such is the survivalability of mites.
However, if you were to look closely at your bees in the winter clustered you will find mites throughout the cluster. The reason for this is the mites are in a phoretic state and to survive so long without brood cells, they need an alternate food source, and so they lodge themselves between the tergits, on the abdomen of the worker bees, so they can have nourishment by sucking bee blood.
As bees have to continually rotate from within to without in the cluster to survive for heat regeneration, you will find therefore find them dispersed as the bees rotate.
Forrest also further wrote:
I think Juan stated, he noticed an increase in mites during the increase of brood rearing. Is this because of the increase in outside temperature and also the increased metabolism of the bees, causing a heat and moisture buildup in the hive? Is the hive ventilation in question? If we were able to keep the hive cooler, will that help.
Reply:
No. It is because of the increase and start of fresh nectar and pollen stimulating the bees to begin rearing of new brood and thus giving the mites a place to transfer to for reproduction and continuance of species.
If you were to keep the hive cooler and shut down or slow down brood rearing, I now ask you, how long would you have a viable colony?
and would you make a decent crop to be happy?
If we are to do these things, would they be natural? I think not and the bees would react in kind by not responding.
The best long term solution will be to do what is natural, forget the artificial treatments not natural to a colony and let the bees overcome their own problem, by giving them the proper tools with which to work: namely, proper cell size within the natural range, proper natural diet of honey and pollen, natural propolis collection for disease control and enough commen sense to let the bees be happy.
Comments and more questions, continuing thoughts.....Anyone?
Dee A. Lusby