Comment: No one has ever claimed that bees or brood were harmed in the slightest by the very tiny dose of Coumaphos administered when in Check-Mite strips are properly used. 

! Not true. Ten years ago red flags were raised about the harmful effects of coumaphos, and other miticides. All of the miticides are harmful to colonies. These discoveries no doubt led D. Weaver to eschew chemical controls in his queen rearing business. Tom Glenn and Marla Spivak also worked tirelessly to produce bees that would not need to be chemically treated. 

> We conducted research on the potential impacts of fluvalinate and coumaphos on honey bee, Apis mellifera L., queen viability and health. Queens were reared in colonies that had been treated with differing amounts of both fluvalinate and coumaphos. Pre- and posttreatment samples of both wax and bees were collected from all of the colonies and analyzed for total concentrations of fluvalinate and coumaphos. All queens were measured for queen weight, ovarial weight, and number of sperm in the spermathecae. 

> The queens treated with high doses of fluvalinate weighed significantly less than low-dose or control queens, but otherwise appeared to develop normally. The highest fluvalinate concentrations were observed in the wax and queen cells of the high-dose group. 

> The developing queens in colonies treated with as little as one coumaphos-impregnated strip for more than 24 h suffered a high mortality rate. Several of the queens showed sublethal effects from the coumaphos, including physical abnormalities and atypical behavior. The queens exposed to coumaphos weighed significantly less and had lower ovary weights than the control group queens. The highest coumaphos concentrations were observed in the queen cells and wax of the high-dose groups.

Haarmann T, Spivak M, Weaver D, Weaver B, Glenn T.  (2002) Effects of fluvalinate and coumaphos on queen honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in two commercial queen rearing operations. J Econ Entomol. 

* * *

In 2010 we read:

> Beekeepers searching for the primary source of pesticides contaminating bee hives need only to look in a mirror. 

> honey bees can suffer negative effects from coumaphos exposure; queens exposed to coumaphos were smaller, suffered higher mortality and were more likely to be rejected when introduced to a colony. 

> Drone sperm viability was lower in stored sperm collected from drones treated with coumaphos.

 Reed M. Johnson, Marion D. Ellis, Christopher A. Mullin, Maryann Frazier. (2002) Pesticides and honey bee toxicity – USA. Apidologie

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html