Ana Maria Quiniones - 1 May 1996.
Some years ago I cooperated with a researcher here working on the
possible cross pollination of California almonds with Washington
cherries and thus transmitting Rugose Mosaic Virus. There may be as
little as two weeks time between almond bloom or prune bloom in
California and cherry bloom in Washington.
I collected samples of bees, over time, from the pollen combs in the
brood nest of hives returning from California. The researcher would
wash the bees in a buffer, centrifuge the material, and check it for
pollen grains. He found that almond, and or prune pollen, could be
found for as long as ten days after hive removal from California, and
placed into a pollen dearth in Washington.
You can't tell clean bees from observation. The buffer turns yellow
with pollen from bees which appear clean to the eye.
He also found that the bee pollen from almonds could be used to
pollinate cherries in Washington, but would result in deformed pollen
tube growth.
This caused us to set a minimum of two weeks as a prudent hiatus in the
use of the same colonies for research purposes.
Subject: CHALKBROOD, DISEASES, AND THEIR CONTROL:
I have become concerned the last ten years because we as beekeepers are
seeking foreign substance controls for use in bee hives. We want to add
so-called biological and chemicals to our hives to control pests and or
predators. All of these substances are foreign to nature's bee nests,
except in those minute quantities resulting from air or environmental
pollution.
And I am not yet aware of significant scientific evidence that these
materials do not have some quantifiable impact on the colony or brood
rearing.
With chalkbrood (CB), the definitive work has been done some years ago
by Dr. Martha Gilliam of the USDA Bee Lab in Tucson Arizona. She found
that many products reduced the number of cells of CB in a hive because
they appeared to trigger colony hive cleaning behavior, causing the bees
to remove the CB mummies. This work has been published in the American
Bee Journal and other places.
Until we can define a "clean hive" and then determine the impact of the
materials we are adding to the hives on brood rearing, nurse bees, and
adults, the potential for residues in comb, and the possible impact to
the environment of the colony, I think we should be cautious about
developing chemicals for use in bee hives. Even harmless or innocuous
materials, to us, may have quite different impacts on the bee colony.
I would rather that we develop more quality standards for producing bees
which would result in good hive cleaners, such as has been done by at
least one breeder in California.
More later.
Subject: SWARMING/QUEEN SUBSTANCE: (M.R. Thompson, Joel Sovotes, Roy,
etc.)
My experience and observation suggests that queen substance in a hive is
quite high in the first three deep boxes of a hive(4.5 westerns) where
the queen is restricted to the bottom two deep brood nests. This would
appear to be confirmed by the fact that a top queen is readily accepted
in a top split made in a fourth deep box, but that the acceptance goes
down if she is placed in the third box. The acceptance remains high if
the bottom queen is restricted to the bottom brood nest with a queen
excluder, and the top queen is put in the third deep box.
The measuring of queen substance by observation gets difficult when bee
behavior is influenced by slow honey flows, bee management by man, and
several other issues. I think we need more information to accurately
determine the real causes behind some of the bee behavior we see. That
is one reason persons who answer questions on bee topics must give
general responses instead of specific ones.
Subject: WINTER LOSS:
I define winter loss as colony demise caused by prolonged periods of
cold weather which prevents bees from moving to ample winter stores in
their hive. Any other losses during the winter period are not winter
loss but are caused by queen loss, HBTM, Varroa, bee management, bee
genetics, improper or inadequate mite treatments or, one or more of the
above.
The number of hives lost over the winter time, as quoted in BEE-L are
thus suspicious. Beekeepers here tell me that they combine or destroy 5
to 15% of their hives in the fall because they are "dinks." Such
colonies may be caused by several of the above factors. Then they tell
me that they lose another 10 to 60% by February when the bees are put
into the almonds in California. Beekeepers here have been reporting
total losses from September thru January at an average of 50%, each of
the last three years!
Subject: PESTICIDES, ENFORCEMENT, STATUTES, REGULATIONS:
Every beekeeper who may experience bee losses from pesticides should
acquire copies of their state statutes and regulations on the use of
pesticides. The language used in these laws are the basis of
enforcement by state personnel. The interpretation of the language may
cause what is determined by beekeepers to be a lack of enforcement. The
language in the statute is usually written quite broad. In regulations,
sometimes called rules, the language may be more specific because
regulations are used to implement the intent of the legislature
written in statute.
Beekeepers also need to be more familiar with the language on chemical
labels. This language may be interpreted different ways by different
persons. The label as a whole is enforceable, and must be read as a
whole. Any statement such as: DO NOT APPLY THIS PRODUCT etc. means
just what it says - do not apply- in the manner prescribed. But other
sections such as the warning statment are meant to compliment the do not
apply statement. For instance: WARNING: This product is highly toxic
to bees if applied to or allowed to drift onto bloom where bees are
foraging. DO NOT APPLY this product to blooming crops or weeds when
bees are foraging. Sometimes a residue period also appears on the label
(eg. 1-3 days). When these two statements are read together they mean
that because of the high impact to bees the chemical should not be
allowed to land on or drift to blooming crops or weeds where bees will
be foraging during the residue life of the product under the weather
conditions to be experienced.
Be involved with your department of agriculture in every aspect of the
interaction of bees with agricultural chemicals, from the writing of the
statute and regulation, to the enforcement proceedures, to evaluating
the success of the efforts.
by James C. Bach
WA State Apiarist
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