Bob's postings are usually highly informed, far-sighted and tolerant.  Is
the heat getting to him?

Apistan has given beekeepers an invaluable window of time to learn how to
control varroa within normal management procedures.  Unfortuneately, in UK
at least, the stay of execution has been wasted - Apistan was taken as just
a quick fix and the ordinary beekeeper is still unprepared/untrained for the
more complex routines that will needed long term.  So if Zach can find how
to extend the use of Apistan, it would provide a backup for a further period
of trials on sustainable long-term treatments. Go to it, Zach!

I just hate anedotal accounts of untreated hives surviving .  They are quite
useless as additions to knowledge as the conditions are not recorded.  Bob
found 4-year survival hives with drone frames all year.  So were varroa
being removed in drone brood all thru the year? Or had varroa been
eliminated in that particular and isolated locality before treatment was
suspended? And what is the varroa population now in each hive that the bees
are tolerating?   And what is the associated level of virus - we know from
Mark Winston that colonies without virus can survive 10,000 mites - whist
those with both tracheal and varroa mites can collapse with less than 2,000.
These anedotes induce 'oh, let's just see' attitudes that in general only
magnify the problem and waste time in the search for safe ways to moderate
the internal environment of the beehive so that bees florish but the
survival rate of mites is lowered.

IMHO the search for bees that have mutated to suppress varroa without
external help is interesting but unlikely to help the ordinary beekeeper for
a very long time.  It would be extraordinary if such bees were found also to
have all the qualities paintakinly bred into the wide range of strains
beekeepers need to be productive in various locations. I do not want to
throw out good temper, adaptation to climate, low swarming just to get
inherent varroa suppression.  Identifying and transfering just the genes
responsible for varroa tolerance would take beekeeping into the arena of GM
that is repugnant in so many ways.  All I want as a hobbyist is the
development of better practical ways to diffuse small quantities of say
thymol or tea tree oil or XXX  or YYY   regularly inside the brood nest -
say by incorporating the substances in a porous block that can be hung
between combs like old-fashioned moth balls.  I do not want to kill varroa -
killing substances are poisons that also damage bees and humans - all we
need is something that say masks the scent of brood so reducing the
efficency with which varroa can find larvae of the right age for sealing, so
reducing their reproductive rate to the level where periodic removal of
drone brood is a sufficient external control.  Manufacturers are not
interested, as they would not make money from substances that cost only
pennies.  Bob is right that it is beekeepers who will have to solve varroa.
Amateurs can experiment , but only slowly and blunderingly.  So we need an
extension of Apistan to save colonies where experiments have failed, as most
of them will.

Let us encourage Zach , not imply he is on the wrong track.  And as
beekeepers with a common problem, let us initiate co-ordinated testing of
alternative controls.  At present, innumerable beekepers have tried
something or other but experience has never been accumulated, nor could it
be as the conditions of test have never been standardised.  Is there any
research organisation that could draft a standard test record sheet that had
boxes for ALL the factors needed to amalgamate the data obtained -
date/colony-size/temperature/initial mite number/last method of
treatment/age of beekeeper and so on for the full list of variables that a
scientist would record. IT IS VITAL FOR THE FUTURE SAFETY OF BEEKEEPING THAT
EXACTLY HOW THE SUBSTANCES WERE OBTAINED AND  PREPARED FOR USE AND
ADMINISTERED, SAFELY, ARE ALSO RECORDED PLUS ANY PROBLEMS .  Could
individual beekeepers then post their standardised records on a web site for
statistical ananysis by competent persons who would also crit the
experiments and suggest ways to focus better on particular features.  Would
not a co-ordinated group of 50,000 beekeepers worldwide be more likely to
find practical effective methods than a few government scientists?  Is the
world wide community of beekeepers not overdue in taking ownership of this
problem that, at least for the foreseeable future, will have to be
controlled thru changes to hive management?

I myself cannot set up such a co-ordinated approach. Is there someone out
there who could?

Robin Dartington

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