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Date: | Wed, 3 Feb 2021 10:43:35 -0600 |
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If anything their broodiness should be a disadvantage
Of course there is the higher swarming, and more dramatically
absconding, that may influence the overall varroa pressure.
Jose, I am at a disadvantage here as I have not read the studies on AHB/varroa
That said I really wonder about the broodiness issue. Do we know anything about the TOTAL amount of brood, compared to the EHB?
What I am trying to say is that a low amount of brood IE smaller hives like Dr. Seeley follows will always have lower mites than the huge hives we try to run here in the commercial operations.
If you use Randys spreadsheet and apply it to volume of brood over the season, its pretty easy to see, that small hives like wild bees, or guys who run singles, will never see the massive mite loads that those of us running doubles with fresh queens get to. Add in swarming (requeening cycle) and with no other factors involved you get a huge difference from that alone.
If you have larger hives, with constant brood, your going to always have many more mites than small hives with brood breaks from swarming and or food shortages. Of course every swarm event is also at the very least a short brood break.
That said I also suspect there are environmental factors involved. Way to much variation year to year in mite levels IMO. We have some seasons they are kicking but, and the next year not an issue. My guess is that Larval nutrition in the bees plays a big portion of that. If you apply what Dr. Ramsey showed, one can suspect that the Reproduction rate of varro would be linked with the nutritional aspects of the bee larva also. I have no proof, just a guess. I also wonder if certain types of nectar/pollen may play a role in the reproduction of mites. That might be a huge stretch, but it’s a thought I have as I cannot explain at all some of the mite numbers we see. Many times we will have 3 out of 4 hives on a pallet with low counts, and 1 with sky high numbers. The only thing that I have ever been able to attribute that to, is a hive foraging in some other plants than the rest.
Charles
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