At 06:54 PM 10/19/1998 +0200, Rimantas Zujus wrote:
Dr. Kublickas advises to treat bees among every nectar
>flow and to have them strong for wintering (not like mine this year).
 
In the U.S. you can't legally treat with chemicals during nectar flows,
when you have honey supers on your hives, and you need to stop the use of
chemicals before the nectar flow.
 
Use of chemicals while collecting nectar and honey could lead to
contamination of the product.
 
 
 
 Dr.
>Kublickas stated that chemical treatment shortens bee age by 50%
 
I would very much like to see a reference that supports this statement.
What chemicals, how treated, how was the life span shortening measured?  If
this is true, I would want to add it to our toxics database.  However, I
have not read anything that supports such a severe effect for any of the
miticides approved for use in beehives.  Halving the life of a bee would
certainly be of concern - the treatment could be worse than the disease.
 
 
 and he
>supports using of natural means for e.g. formicacid.
 
Although secreted by ants, found in human urine, and produced by domestic
sewage, formic acid is still a chemical, also known as methanoic acid.
Some birds do rub their feathers with ants for the formic acid.  That
doesn't mean that formic acid has no effect on bees or that it is better
than a synthetic chemical (in terms of mite control or reduction of impact
to bees).  Certainly too much formic acid can harm the queen.
 
 
>When one bee's wing "looks" back (as usually does) and another "looks" ahead
>it means they have tracheal mites (Dr. Kublickas). I'm not expierenced with
>this mite.
>
 
Mites and the viruses that they vector have been implicated in wing
deformations.  I doubt that one facing forward and one facing back is
diagnostic of tracheal mites.  I can only assume that because many tracheal
mites tend to be in one rather than both trachea of the host bee, someone
then suggested that a single forward facing wing = tracheal mites.
 
But I have seen thousands of heavily infested bees containing tracheal
mites in one or both trachea, and none of the bees had deformed wings.
 
Deformed wings are much more common in varroa mite infested colonies -
whether as a result of the mite's feeding or a virus as suggested in other
postings is a topic of debate.
 
Jerry
>
>
Jerry J. Bromenshenk
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http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees