Mite counts

[SmithN]

I did another count on the hives with high mite counts, all but 1 looks better!
Most of the hives improved by 50%.
The count on hive# 9 went up.


Aug 28 mite counts.................Oct 26 mite counts .......Oct 28 mite counts......Nov 6 counts

Before treatment................... After treatment...............Re-count...................New count


hive# 5- 82 mites..................hive# 5- 180 mites...........hive# 5- 63 mites......hive# 5- 29 mites
hive# 6- 72 mites..................hive# 6- 135 mites...........hive# 6- 45 mites..... hive# 6- 22 mites

hive# 8- 93 mites .................hive# 8- 112 mites...........hive# 8- 70 mites.....hive# 8- 34 mites
hive# 9- 131 mites ...............hive# 9- 65 mites.............hive# 9- 63 mites.....hive# 9-64 mites
hive# 10- 130 mites .............hive# 10- 81 mites...........hive# 10- 60 mites....hive# 10- 34 mites

[top bar maker]

Instead of treating, why not introduce resistant queens or develop your own line from colonies that do well without treatment? It seems to me that developing a better bee through selective breeding is the only long term solution to the mite problem. After all, selective breeding seems to work for vegetables, fruit trees, livestock, etc. There are a lot of resistant queen breeders out there. Check out Glenn Apiaries - http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/catalog.html - or my website http://66.147.244.177/~thegare2/looking-for-bees for a list.

[Jacobs]

I guess it is a matter of philosophy and time. How many are willing to take 90-100 percent losses if treatments that are qualified as organic are somewhat effective and available? No one is looking at mite elimination and perhaps resistance will develop over time. Sort of the same reason I take my blood pressure medicine. I'm not willing to take my losses and thin the herd through a population of lower blood pressured humans.

[Wally]

Well, let's see now. Humans bring the honeybee to America, bring the tracheal mite in, the varroa mite, and the SHB. Then you say let nature take it's course. Maybe the honeybees in Italy would be fine for doing that, if humans have not brought any of the pests into that country. Since humans caused the problem here, I feel humans should do all they can to correct it, including propping them up with chemicals until they can form a defense for themselves. I don't agree that we should ignore the problem we caused.

[SmithN]

Jacobs & Wally, my sentiments exactly!

I'm not willing to take 90-100 percent losses if treatments that are qualified as organic are somewhat effective and available.
I don't agree that we should ignore the problem we caused.

Glenn Apiaries breeder queens are instrumentally inseminated
and a little too expensive for backyard beekeepers such as myself.
They are used by many of our NC commercial queen suppliers.
Chances are we have their genetics in the queens that are in our hives.

FYI my hives #8 & #9 have queens from Jennifer A. Berry's stock,
Jennifer Berry is Apicultural Research Coordinator and Lab Manager at the University of Georgia.
Her primary areas of research have been a queen breeding program
and Integrated Pest Management work for varroa mite control.

http://www.ent.uga.edu/Bees/personnel/berry.html

[top bar maker]

I did not say let nature take it's course. I said beekeepers should adopt a strategy of hybridization if there is to be a long term solution to the honeybee population decline. How long do you think medicinal/chemical treatments are going to be effective before beekeepers inadvertently breed a resistant pest or disease? Surely by now we all know that this is a short term solution. At my first meeting with the Guilford Beekeepers I heard an old-timer loudly proclaim that the best strain of bees are the ones that survive. That seemed obvious then and it still does. My feeling, and I suppose Wally's if I read him right, is that with the current situation having been more or less caused by humans, we all, and especially beekeepers, have a responsibility to help the bees with their long term survival. Who is better qualified and better placed to make this happen than beekeepers? It's not even a matter of money, really. A lot of keepers know how to raise queens. If beekeepers took it upon themselves to breed hygenic and resistant queens and to replace queens whose colonies do not have these qualities we could be instrumental in reestablishing the feral honeybee population as well as the apiary population. It seems to me there's a lot more to beekeeping than honey in these troubled times.

[Wally]

Most of us split our strongest hives in the spring, and requeen the weaker ones. Whether we medicated them in the fall or not. I think that in itself is raising the fittest and replacing the unfit, even though we medicate. I don't feel that there is anything wrong with medicating. It's over medicating, or under medicating that I think causes most problems. Over medicating causes the bees to quit building immunity, while under medicating leaves enough of the bad guys living to develop resistance. If the labels are followed correctly, I think medicating is a good way to go. The bees cannot become immune to pests or diseases unless they live long enough to build that immunity.

[SmithN]

Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 2:56 pm By: top bar maker
"Instead of treating, why not introduce resistant queens or develop your own line from colonies that do well without treatment?"

If you have decided to raise colonies without treatment and are successful in keeping your colonies alive and healthy,
I commend you. You are a better beekeeper than I am, my colonies don't do well without treatment.
My colonies won't survive without treatment.
Please, share with us how many untreated colonies you currently manage
and the number of years your colonies have survived without treatment.
PLEASE share your management secrets.

[top bar maker]

Wally, I see your point although I wonder if a queen can develop resistance traits over the 2+ years she is laying eggs. From my reading it appears that hygienic behavior and disease resistance are genetic traits rather than learned responses. I realize that experience trumps theory, however.

Norma, I am not in any way attempting to tell keepers how to keep bees. I am only trying to raise a point about the problems facing the bee population and asking the beekeeping community what are good long-term strategies for solving these problems. My feeling is that the loss of pollinators for 1/3 of the food we eat is a huge problem. To me, beekeeping is a way that one person can make a real difference in undoing some tiny piece of the harm that we have been doing to our fellow creatures, our fellow man, and the environment which sustains us all.

[Jacobs]

Mutts vs. mites. I like it. I have signed up for the queen rearing workshops the State is going to hold this Spring. I would like to get an idea of the bees/beekeepers within drone range of my hives to have some idea of the bee backgrounds for drone production. I wonder how much behavior is determined by the genetics of the queen and how much by the drone genetics. With a well mated queen there would be what, 14+ genetic combintations of queen/drone workers? I suppose the fertilization is based on a random mix, but I haven't seen anything on that.

I don't have a new mite count to add, but am reasonably optimistic that I will have 3 pound packages of mites to sell in the Spring.

[top bar maker]

HAHAHA I will be looking for some bees this spring, but I've got a feeling that I won't need any mites.
I have found a website or two that I have found useful in my research - Glenn Apiaries has a lot of good information on genetics and sources for resistant queens, but their instrumentally inseminated (!) queens are pretty pricey. Another breeder is B Weaver Apiaries who will sell you a late stage queen cell for what seems to me to be a reasonable cost. I don't know what the odds of success with that strategy are though. I have been working on a list of breeders on my website. The page is http://66.147.244.177/~thegare2/bee-fri ... g-for-bees
I am also looking forward to the queen breeding class. I'm sure you know this, but Debbie Roos of the Chatham County Extension office has a great website which includes good information about beekeeping. The beekeeping page is: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/Sust ... epers.html

[Jacobs]

I am getting my cooking spray and sticky boards ready. It looks like we are finally going to get a stretch of weather that will allow a varroa mite count. After I get the results I will decide on a treatment scheme if needed.

[top bar maker]

I've been doing a lot of research since I got into this topic and I find a lot of conflicting and anecdotal information. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems the most critical thing a keeper can do about mites is to keep a VERY close eye on the colony so that a non toxic treatment can be started as soon as any increase in mites is noted. Once they begin to "take hold" their population growth is exponential.
Question - screened bottoms are reputed to help with control. True for you guys? Are there drawbacks to screened bottoms? Do they interfere with the bees' ability to cool the hive in extremely hot weather?
Question - If the mites prefer the drone brood because a) the cells are bigger and b) the drones take longer to emerge giving the mites a longer window of time to develop, then removing drone brood on a shedule which disrupts the breeding cycle of the mite should be an important ccontrol measure. What is the effect on the colony of removing drone brood? Are there certain times of the year when the drones should not be removed?
Question - the powdered sugar (or inert dust) method seems to work very well at separating the mites from the bees and killing the mites. Would it be harmful to the bees to dust them repeatedly as a way to disrupt the mite breeding cycle?
Lastly, I read that a tapered cell foundation screws up the mites' development in the brood cell. Has anyone tried this?
Thanks for your help. As always, experience trumps theory every time!

[ski]

I am not into research, I am just a beekeeper trying to keep my bees alive.

Hopefully when the new MAQS – Mite-Away Quick Strips are approved for use and are available mites may not be as big of a problem as they are now.

You say correct you if you are wrong, beekeeping is usually not balck or white right or wrong, it would be a lot easier if it was just do X,Y,Z and all the bees are healthy again. What may work in one part of the country for one beekeeper may not work for another down the road or in another part of the country.

“most critical thing a keeper can do about mites is to keep a VERY close eye on the colony”
If by close eye you mean do mite counts. I think mite counts should be done to monitor the infestation level of the mites.

“a non toxic treatment can be started”
Hopefully it is toxic to the mites.

“started as soon as any increase in mites is noted”
Mite counts are not an exact science so doing anything as soon as “any” increase is noted may not be sound advice. If you look at the NC State site they recommend a threshold and that threshold is different for spring and fall. So if you do a couple of counts and the count is above a threshold then some treatment is advisable.

“screened bottoms are reputed to help with control. True for you guys?”
Screened bottom boards can be a part of the IPM (integrated Pest Management) plan. If you have a screened bottom board and ONE mite falls off a bee, falls through the screen to the ground and dies that is a good thing and can be said it helps with controlling mites.
When doing a sticky board count there are mites that are alive on the sticky board so if these mites fell on a solid bottom board they could hitch a ride on a bee back into the brood nest. So I would say it is true.


“Are there drawbacks to screened bottoms?”
The bees may not use the very bottom of the frames directly above a screened bottom. Not sure why, too much light, too cool, too hot?

“Do they(screened bottoms) interfere with the bees' ability to cool the hive in extremely hot weather? “
Off the top of my head the only way to know if a hive is hot is by how much they are bearding, not sure I can draw any comparisons between screened and solid bottom boards. They both seem to beard from what I have seen.


“ If the mites prefer the drone brood because….., then removing drone brood on a shedule which disrupts the breeding cycle of the mite should be an important ccontrol measure.”
Drone brood removal can be an effective part of IPM. However it may not always be possible. IF you have an out yard which you cannot get to on the required schedule, then its better NOT to use drone brood for mite control.


“What is the effect on the colony of removing drone brood? Are there certain times of the year when the drones should not be removed?”
There are less drones in the hive. Theoretically if everyone did this on all their hives it may make it harder for queens raised in your apiary to become mated.
I am not aware of any time they should not be removed. But again I am not into research, just trying to keep my bees alive.

“Question - the powdered sugar (or inert dust) method seems to work very well at separating the mites from the bees and killing the mites. Would it be harmful to the bees to dust them repeatedly as a way to disrupt the mite breeding cycle?”
The powered sugar does not kill the mites it only breaks their physical grip on the bees.
It depends what you mean by repeatedly. Jennifer Berry suggested doing powered sugar dusting every time you went to the apiary.
I would not say it disrupts their breeding cycle unless you count removing a mite as disrupting their breeding cycle. It does remove mites from the hive thereby lowering the total population.

I have not heard of the tapered cell theory yet or of any foundation that is made to accommodate it.

[top bar maker]

Interesting. Thanks for your input. The one thing that seems to be repeated over and over in my reading - and I'm reading mostly research papers from university bee labs - is that the pesticide regime is failing, and failing badly. Not only do mites with their short breeding cycle develop resistance rapidly, but inconsistent and inept use of pesticides exacerbate the problem. This is leaving aside any long term problems with spreading pesticides throughout the environment.

One interesting point that I came across is that it it is bad for the mite to kill the bee. The best situation from the mite's point of view is for the colony to be successful so the mites can continue to reproduce. Natural selection suggests that the bees will, over time, develop resistant behaviors or physical changes to cope with the mites while at the same time the mites will also change their behaviors or physical characteristics to do less harm to the bees.

Ain't nature wonderful!

[ski]

The pesticide treatment for mites and AFB have had a history of failing due to misuse. This can be read in the bee journals and on the forums, no surprise there.
With the new MAQS – Mite-Away Quick Strips resistance is not expected to develop. I guess they don’t form a resistance to formic acid.

It is interesting about it being bad for the mite to kill the bee.
In one of the North Carolina State Beekeepers meetings there was a study done where hives were taken from the woods (feral bees) and placed in an apiary and bees from the apiary were placed in the woods. The results were that the bees from the woods put in the apiary faired no better then the other bees in the apiary. But the bees from the apiary placed in the woods survived just fine. Conclusion: It is not the bees that are different it’s the mites.

Ain't nature wonderfully funny!

[top bar maker]

I would have thought the opposite - after all, no one is breeding mites to resist bees. Hmm, maybe we're looking in the wrong end of the telescope!

[Jacobs]

And now back to the original purpose of this subject line, mite counts (and not the merits of treating/not treating). My sticky boards went on this morning. I'll report results after I leave them in 72 hours and divide by 3 to get a 24 hour average drop.

[Jacobs]

Hive.....8/1/09.......Treatment.......11/6/09.......3/7/10..........Status
...........Mite Count........................Mite Count....Mite Count

1..........61.............Apilife Var........63..............5..................Hopeful
2..........18.............none..............149..............4..................Doubtful
3............6.............none..............164..............1..................Closed out
4..........67.............Apilife Var..........5..............3..................Strongest
5..........74.............Apilife Var.........29............14..................2nd Strongest
.........................................................................................Formic Acid on
6..........25.............none.................97..............1..................Hopeful
7............6.............none...............146..............1..................Questionable

Hive number 3 had a very small cluster and less than a palm sized area of brood on 1 frame when closed out. We caught the queen and 5 helpers and took them to one of Marc's hives that was queenless. We did a direct introduction of the queen and are waiting to see what happened. Initially it appeared that the hive was receptive to her.

What this leads me to believe is that we really do need a cool weather treatment option for later in the fall season. The hives that were above threshold in August and received treatment appear to be doing better than those that were below threshold and not treated but continued to build a mite load into Fall.

[Doug Shaw]

Jacobs,
Trying to learn as much as possible for the coming year. Do all of your hives have Italian queens? Do you use screen bottom boards in any of the hives?