Hi All,

Some of us were at the American Bee Research Conference today, and watched
Dr Dick Rogers present the Movento study that he, Chung Lam, Geoff Williams,
and Dave Hackenberg, with the cooperation of the National Honey Bee Advisory
Board (NHBAB), ran in citrus groves in Dade County, Florida last season.

This trial was designed to satisfy the suggestions by the NHBAB that tests
be run on normal commercial colonies, with normal used combs, and normal
pathogen levels, with the test and control yards suggested by Dave
Hackenberg.

The trial ran from March through October, with Movento being sprayed onto
bloom on March 26 at label rate (730ml product/ha) while bees were actively
foraging.  In fact, the spray rig passed immediately next to the test
colonies.

I believe that most in the audience were impressed by the thoroughness and
meticulousness of the data collection by Dr Rogers and team.  They monitored
brood viability immediately after spraying, and for the next four months
recorded frames covered by bees, capped brood, open brood, frame coverage by
honey, and by pollen, varroa and nosema levels.

They also monitored dead bee traps, and noted the age (pupa or adult) and
sex of each dead bee, and whether it had signs of DWV.

They also recorded hive weight, and spirotetramat residues in blossoms,
nectar shook from the combs, and in trapped pollen loads.

There were no differences in brood (larval or pupal) viability for the
several days after spraying.

The colonies were moved by Hackenberg after citrus bloom to apples, then
blueberries, then pumpkins, and were again monitored after each crop.

The control colonies were somewhat stronger before spraying, but were passed
up by the Movento colonies during the ensuing months.

To briefly summarize the rest of the data, the Movento colonies started with
9% mite levels, and the controls at 5%.  A month later, they had dropped
slightly in the Movento group, and risen in the controls.

Hackenberg treated for mites in May and then twice in June.

Nosema levels were in the range of 1-4M for most of the trial for both
groups.

No colonies died in citrus.  More control colonies than Movento colonies
died thereafter at each assessment (last assessment after pumpkins in Oct.),
at which point 8 Movento, and 9 controls had died (out of 12 in each group).

Causes of death appeared to be due to high mite levels and DWV infection, as
evidenced by the high DWV mortality of pupae in the dead bee traps.

Conclusion:  Movento sprayed on citrus bloom did not appear to negatively
affect commercial test colonies in either the short or long term.

However, after the trial concluded, Dave Hackenberg told beekeepers that the
remaining 4 Movento colonies eventually died, whereas the 3 remaining
control colonies survived.  Some beekeepers in the audience felt that that
final mortality was due to some sort of delayed response.

However, this didn't appear plausible to us, since spirotetramat residues
were far below toxic levels at any time of the trial, and rapidly degraded.
From the data at the Oct report, it was clear that ALL colonies were on a
hard downhill trend as far as health was concerned, due to mite levels and
DWV.

I (Randy) personally asked Dave whether next year he would prefer the
orchard to be sprayed with Movento or to go back to existing products.  He
said that he would prefer Movento.

Randy Oliver and Peter Loring Borst
Reporting from Orlando

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