Hello All,

Barry Donovan wrote:
> Briefly, and as several people have posted, there are reported to be two species of pseudoscorpions living among bees in South African hives. Adults are about 6 mm long. Pseudos (for short) are said to prey upon pollen mites, the bee fly, and insect larvae such as those of wax moths, and also almost certainly larvae of the hive beetles (2 species). Bees are thought not to be preyed upon.

Sorry Barry but bees and larva are thought to be preyed on according to
the article in Bee Culture by Dewey Caron and the book *Honey Bee
Pests,Predators and diseases*.  But pseudoscorpions could never be
considered a serious pest to a strong hive of bees.  I ask you how these
arachinids are going to pull adult varroa off adult bees when they hid
in cracks of hives?   How are they going to bypass nurse bees and pull
varroa off larva being maintained by nurse bees when they live in corner
cracks of hives?  I can't blame you for grabbing the research money and
heading to south Africa.  I wouldn't mind going myself with our below
zero weather in Missouri.  I remain very very skeptical.

> At least one species of pseudos lives in colonies of the eastern honey bee, so perhaps it predates Varroa, and if so, this may contribute to the lack of a Varroa problem in Apis cerana?

We all know the simple reason A.cerana survives varroa is because varroa
doesn't reproduce in  A.cerana worker brood . All research shows this to
be the case.  In my opinion finding out why that is so would be more
important than chasing pseudos but again only one beekeepers opinion.
So far not one researcher on the planet has been able to explain for
sure why varroa doesn't reproduce in A.cerana worker brood.
>
> The New Zealand Government has recently established a fund for research on Varroa. I will apply for support to travel to South Africa to determine whether pseudos do in fact eat Varroa, and also bee eggs etc. If Varroa ar eaten, but bees are not, the next step would be to introduce pseudos to our European subspecies of bees in quarantine to discover whether the two are compatable. If they are, whether pseudos should be introduced to New Zealand would have to be considered by our Government-run E
> So to date there appears to be every possibility that South African pseudos are indeed eating Varroa, and are not eating bees. Objective evidence as to whether this is so is yet to be produced. If true, and if pseudos and European bees are compatable, we may have a biological control for Varroa that could be introduced to beehives everywhere.

I remain very skeptical but try to keep a open mind. Pseudoscorpions are
arachnids and to think they would only prey on varroa and not larva or
bees is hard for me to believe.  My research shows at least four species
in Africa:
Engsenius sculpuratus,E. fulleri, E. ugandanus and E. somalicus.
As a realist the largest concentration of pseudoscorpions found in one
hive in Belize Central America by Dewey Caron was around 200( most hives
less than 20) so that tells me the bees will remove and kill any larger
amounts.  We have got at summers end thousands of varroa in our hives.
I don't believe 200 pseudoscorpions could control our varroa problem.
Good luck with the research but I remain skeptical.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison