Immature Varroa Mites?

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Chewed carapaces is an interesting fact, and may point to hygienic traits. A local queen rearer looks for that in his rearing.

On the other hand your view of 'hard' and (presumably) 'soft' chemicals is interesting.
For instance, Apistan is much kinder to the bees than Oxalic acid. Apistan is far safer to use as its lethal dose for bees is at 1000 times its therapeutic dose. Whereas Oxalic acid has a ratio closer to 10. If you come into contact with Apistan it is unlikely to harm you. Oxalic acid causes severe burns to skin and is dangerous to inhale (e.g. during vaporisation). Similarly formic acid, acetic acid and thymol. Apistan works on a very specific feature of the mites, which is not essential to their life, and so resistance is possible. The 'natural' chemicals have a more wide-ranging attack, so resistance is less likely. Just because the 'natural' chemicals occur in nature does not make them safe and do not imagine that the 'natural' chemicals you put in your hive are obtained from natural sources. (For instance, they don't obtain formic acid by boiling up ants.) They will be just as manufactured as the others.

'Only contains natural minerals and plant extracts' may make a nice advertising slogan, but arsenic is a natural mineral and strychnine is a plant extract. These 'natural' chemicals deserve our respect and care just as much as the artificial ones.

You may come back and say that you were hoping for an entirely chemical-free existence with your bees and the mites. That may well be possible in the future and I hope that your bees are part of that evolution. There appears to be some evidence that rather than producing bees with VSH, that where bees survive a long time with varroa we may be seeing the development of 'bee-friendlier varroa'. It may be that the use of chemicals is wiping out 'bee-friendlier varroa' and allowing for re-invasion with mites that are less able to live in harmony with the bees.
 
jd101k2000 said:
These 'natural' chemicals deserve our respect and care just as much as the artificial ones.

You may come back and say that you were hoping for an entirely chemical-free existence with your bees and the mites. That may well be possible in the future and I hope that your bees are part of that evolution.
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Its nice to see a well informed coherent argument which is expressed clearly.

I find little to disagree with in what you have said. I completely agree with your point that natural ingredients can have toxic effects. In fact, my wife analysed the quantity of active ingredients in "herbal medicines" as part of her M.Sc with some interesting results.
I do believe that the best hope for a lasting solution to the varroa problem lies in breeding a honeybee which expresses the ability to manage its varroa population. I do not believe that any single beekeeper can do that alone so we must work together. If I come across as being overly defensive about the bees I look after, its because I understand how much work has gone into developing them to this point. There is a long way to go, but I would rather do my part of it than lose hope and complain about varroa.
 
... Apistan is far safer to use as its lethal dose for bees is at 1000 times its therapeutic dose..... Apistan works on a very specific feature of the mites, which is not essential to their life, ....

While this may be true for a lethal dose, I would not be encouraging anyone to increase the dosage in order to 'clearly' kill more mites without killing the bees. There are other effects, such as building up resistance or affecting fauna further down the food chain or in the environment. Maybe think DDT?

We know that resistance to apistan does occur, has occurred and is the reason we don't use it on a regular basis. As to not being 'essential to life' makes me wonder why apistan kills mites!!

That post needs to be read carefully and in context. The other point to raise might be that some things which are poisonous to mammals (per eg) may not be (so) toxic to other forms of life. Think here some toadstools, maybe some pollens and nectars (chrysanthemums? ). So lots of details need expanding upon. Many will not understand, or bother to expand their knowledge by reading around the subject.
 
oliver90owner said:

That post needs to be read carefully and in context.
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The way I prefer to look at it is that introducing any form of chemical into a colony, and hence into the food chain, is not a desirable thing. I am sure that none of us took up the craft with the intention of "medicating" our bees to help them survive or to produce a better crop. Unfortunately, some conditions occur that requires intervention and I would seek to minimise those just as a responsible doctor would seek to minimse the use of antibiotics.
Let me give you an example of what I mean: I read a statement recently that made me stop and think what I was doing and question whether I was doing the right thing. It was in section 2.3.7 of the AGT Methodenhandboek (which I translated from German using google translate). It concerns the over-wintering abilities of the honeybee and how the use of modern methods have allowed weaker stocks of bees to survive and how the selection for "winter resistence" has receded more and more into the background. Like many beekeepers I have adopted high density poly hives for their thermal properties and lighter weight. They are, however, a product of the petrochemical industry and none of us knows if they are completely inert. I pride myself on not doing anything that would mask the desirable characteristics I am looking for in by colonies yet I have adopted polyhives for my own convenience rather than considering the effect they may have. I am going to have to think long and hard about that.
 
It seems to me that although bees did develop the ability to over winter....it could be that only those bees which sheltered in appropriate well insulated homes, may be the ones which survived. We know that wood has a good insulating power .....in a natural form...such as large tree trunks. So using poly may not be hugely different.
Many animals self medicate.....especially grazers...choosing herbs and foliage that help maintain good health. Is there any evidence of this in bees? Do they choose pollens that help their health? In time, will they find a way to deter the varroa sufficiently to be able to live with it?
There is so much to learn and discover about this new hobby.
 
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There are so much believes. Many think that sugar is poison to bees, and they are ready to pay 5 fold prices when same sugar is sold with other name.

Sugar glucose is the base of life on Earth. Sun energy is caught in it in photosyntesis, and stored many ways in creatures, like starch and fat. Glucose is used as raw material in all life. It is vain to teach that glucose is not poison.

It is strange that when alcohol is poison, who minds about that.
 
Tremyfro said:
It seems to me that although bees did develop the ability to over winter....it could be that only those bees which sheltered in appropriate well insulated homes, may be the ones which survived. We know that wood has a good insulating power .....in a natural form...such as large tree trunks. So using poly may not be hugely different.
Many animals self medicate.....especially grazers...choosing herbs and foliage that help maintain good health.
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Thats an interesting point and, I must confess, I don't know the answer. Foraging for, and storing, a particular pollen would require some advance knowledge of the challenges they are likely to face, or a memory of those they have faced together with the knowledge of which proteins have helped them overcome it. I don't credit the bees with this sort of intelligence but who is to know if this ability, however it is derived, isn't what we call evolution.
I also have concerns about the use of petrochemical products from a cleanliness/disease management point of view. It seems to me that we are being seduced by the convenience and lower cost of these poducts (polyhives/plastic frames) when we may be exchanging a short-term gain for a longer term loss. It took bees millions of years to evolve their overwintering ability (some emerging stronger than others in the spring and being better equipped to take advantage of the early forage and ultimately be in a better position to reproduce more) and, I think, we would be failing in our responsibilities as caretakers if we didn't look after that. I have used plastic combs and know from personal experience that it is very easy to lose track of how long they have been in the hive. This can harbour pathogens which can lead to disease. The polyhives themselves have to be scrubbed clean of wax/propolis and soaked in bleach to clean them. Even after airing the hive properly, I have to ask, do I really want to use bleach in my hives?
 
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B+. said:
I'm not sure what this means. Is it Finnish?
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It is a test, what guys see in nonsense text. Do they trust on their own ability to select true things and abandon rubbish.

You was not sure what to do.

Some may see dead horses and even of humour in it. Really bad sense of humour in that case, but much open mind to explain everything new.

Pargyle has ability to see odd things in those few letters. It is hard work to learn away that all rubbish which accumulates into memory.

.
 
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Finman said:
.
Sugar glucose is the base of life on Earth. Sun energy is caught in it in photosyntesis, and stored many ways in creatures, like starch and fat. Glucose is used as raw material in all life. It is vain to teach that glucose is not poison.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, we don't take our energy straight from the sun the way that plants do. We rely on intermediaries such as plants and insects to make that conversion for us. I think we have to be very careful about how we process that "raw material" if we are not to contaminate it in any way during the manufacturing process.
 
Finman said:
It is hard work to learn away that all rubbish which accumulates into memory.

.
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I agree Finman. As beginners, we are taught lots of things which aren't completely true. The way that I rationalise this is the way I see my wife teach chemistry: young children are given part of the picture in a form that they can understand it. As they get older, they are taught that the way they understood things before is not quite correct, or is only part of the picture. We have to relearn, and sometimes unlearn things we were taught as we progress. It is just like that in beekeeping
 
B+. said:
Unfortunately, we don't take our energy straight from the sun the way that plants do.
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Yes, green algae under skin... Strange idea and sitting in greenhouse to load batteries.
 
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....and do bees...which live in trees choose particular types of tree to live in or is it only chosen on space and location. Perhaps the trees themselves have particular chemicals present which help the bees in regard to pathogens and mites....would they choose pine? With all those resins present...or eucalyptus with its strong oils? We hear of beekeepers using essential oils in sugar solution as treatment for nosema etc.....do we know whether bees would choose these very oils to make their home within.
Nowadays....beehives are made of cedar....which has resins....pine...which has resins....poly...which have petrochemical vapours possibly. Yet the bees do well in them. So perhaps it comes down to insulation helping survival through saving energy.
 
Tremyfro said:
Nowadays....beehives are made of cedar....which has resins....pine...which has resins....poly...which have petrochemical vapours possibly. Yet the bees do well in them. So perhaps it comes down to insulation helping survival through saving energy.
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I don't think any of us know the answer to that one. I think it is one of those things where you have to choose the least offensive route, recognising that we don't have all the answers and hope that we are doing the right thing.
 
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Petrochemical fumes in hives...
Do we call them aromatic plastics or essential plastics?
 
B+. said:
I don't think any of us know the answer to that one. I think it is one of those things where you have to choose the least offensive route, recognising that we don't have all the answers and hope that we are doing the right thing.
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I think something like this could lead to an answer: http://www.swindonhoneybeeconservation.org.uk/research/

Meanwhile, as Finnie says 'varroa will double in a month'

CVB
 
That was an interesting article...CVB. Thank you.
I wonder if I could train my bees to do that!
 
I agree. We've tried the chemical "solution" and got resistant mites. The answer has to come from breeding bees that are able to cope with varroa themselves.
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Whenever I've raised the question of shouldn't we be working with our bees to fight varroa I've been told " we recommend Apiguard or equivalent in autumn and oxalic acid dribble in winter". When I asked does mite count influence whether you treat? The reply was we recommend blanket treatment as 'most' beekeepers are failing to manage varroa.
This was the reply I recieved at the recent bee disease workshop at the BBKA anual meeting from the bee inspectors and I got the same answer at 2 regional meeting.
No one else in the audience supported my view that we should only treat when necessary.
Are all bee inspectors recommending this blanket approach to varroa?
 
Are all bee inspectors recommending this blanket approach to varroa?


Ours certainly does.
It seems, talking to some other members of my BKA, that's what most of my fellow beekeepers do and they don't really have a clue about any other sort of management. Some never monitor at all.....just get on with treating and get resupplied if their colonies fail!
 
Pargyle will confirm that you plough a pretty lonely furrow if you try talking to most beekeepers about not treating bees prophylactically - 'just in case'. He has not needed to treat his colonies for a couple of years. To many, Integrated Pest Management means changing the chemical types occasionally whereas it surely must mean more than that - only treating if there is a problem would be a start!

It makes me wonder whether there are some self-protecting bees out there that are being routinely treated with MAQs, Thymol, Oxalic Acidic, etc. and never really get the chance to get on top of the mites before they're doused in chemicals by their well-meaning keeper.

I have checked for Varroa Specific Hygiene (VSH) on my two colonies but have found no evidence of bee-damaged mites or infested brood cells being torn open, so I guess my bees are part of the 90% or so that don't exhibit VSH. If I had 500 hives I probably would not have the time to check each colony for VSH but it's not too difficult - see http://www.jameskilty.co.uk/beekeeping/improvement/draft_VSH_protocol.pdf

CVB
 
charlievictorbravo said:
I have checked for Varroa Specific Hygiene (VSH) on my two colonies but have found no evidence of bee-damaged mites or infested brood cells being torn open, so I guess my bees are part of the 90% or so that don't exhibit VSH. If I had 500 hives I probably would not have the time to check each colony for VSH but it's not too difficult - see http://www.jameskilty.co.uk/beekeeping/improvement/draft_VSH_protocol.pdf

CVB
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I haven't treated my bees since the early 1990's. Around 1993 or 1994 if memory serves me right.

VSH involves the ability to detect infected cells AND the ability to uncap/remove the infected larva. Its more than damage to the carapace. When the USDA did this early work, they found all colonies had it to an extent. They had to select for it over the generations to intensify the trait. I think Marla Spivak wrote some papers about it but I don't have them to hand.

The Arista group were able to find the same trait in a test which was conducted with Buckfasts last year and will be conducting a similar test on Carniolans this year.http://aristabeeresearch.org/
 
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