> I was actually sorry to see thymol and formic implicated since these are the only treatments I use.
Interesting material you post, Pete. Thanks.
Last year I was puzzled by the total loss I had at the end. I had good success in previous years
using splitting heavily and a fall OA drizzle as my only controls, and was adding resistant (hygienic)
stock as I went. I monitored the mites casually and they were there, but not in large enough
numbers to worry me. That seemed to be the case last summer, too.
However, last summer, I got the idea of using thymol in the syrup feed at the end of the summer
as an attractant, as a preservative, and for its reputed anti-varroa properties.
That fall and during the following winter, I lost 100% of my colonies. That was very unusual, and
also unexpected. Looking at the varroa levels, I expected high loss, but not 100%. It seems
varroa numbers had ballooned in fall and that something swept through the yard, killing more
than the number of hives that varroa alone would have been expected to take, given the
variation in densities observed between hives.
I had also used two antibiotics that summer since a few cells of AFB had shown up (how
hygienic were the bees?) months before the thymol feeding, and I wondered here on BEE-L if
maybe the antibiotics had somehow interfered with something that had restricted varroa from
building to serious levels in previous years.
I wondered if varroa has some bacterial enemies and if I had wiped them out as collateral
damage in my AFB control, or even if Tylosin is a performance enhancer for mites as it apparently
is for hogs (See 1).
I had more EPS boxes, that year, too, but had run EPS boxes successfully up until then, too.
Otherwise, my management was not much different.Now, reading this, I am wondering. Since
I attributed a measure of my previous success to employing hygienic stock, could using thymol
have counteracted that protection?
Of course there is no way of knowing because I was not carefully monitoring mites at that
time or recording observations and I had changed several factors in my management a
little or a lot, but...
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51°33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/
---
(1) The benefits of the antibiotic growth promoters arise from their principal mode of action
which aims to manipulate the microbial flora of the intestinal tract in most species as well as
the rumen of ruminants. The result of this interaction with the organisms of the gut is
improved digestion, metabolism and absorption of an array of essential nutrients, including
carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, minerals and vitamins. In addition, and as a result of
enhanced utilisation of their diets, supplemented animals need less feed and produce less
waste. The benefits can be broadly categorised into environmental, performance
improvement, disease control, prevention of metabolic and fermentation disorders, and a set
of other related benefits.
From http://www.animalhealthalliance.org.au/files/animalhealth/information/The%20Role%20of%20enteric%20antibiotics%20in%20livestock%20production.pdf
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