?> I, too, have intentionally done the "set it and forget it" experiment.
Those bees generally lived into a second season, but the third season they
were wax moth food.
This is quite widely observed if varroa are not managed. It also
corresponds to the Spanish observations about uncontrolled nosema.
We don't really know for sure what is happening, but it seems that if one or
the other -- or even more so, both -- gets out of hand, eventual loss
results.
The mortality is not always immediate as one would expect, but can be
delayed by months. It seems that once these agents get above a certain
level, they enable whatever it is that causes colony death to cross a
threshold from which there is often no return.
We do see instances where either of the two an get above what we know to be
dangerous levels without that result, and can only conclude that in those
cases whatever is finishing the colonies off is either not present or
somehow unable to take advantage due to some interfering factor.
Medhat, in Alberta, demonstrated that by simply maintaining low levels of
both nosema and varroa, winter losses -- so far at least -- return to the
normal low background winter losses which we expected before coumaphos lost
efficacy. There is a very observable correlation between the degree of
control achieved by a beekeeper and wintering success. That correlation is
not direct, but it is quite obvious.
So, it seems that these two agents, nosema and varroa -- each of which
wounds bees -- enable some other agent to achieve "critical mass" and to
balloon towards colony destruction. Last minute interventions can work if
things are right and luck is on the beekeeper's side, but more often than
not, the damage is already done and the seeds of destruction are already
sown.
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