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Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:50:28 -0600 |
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Deep Thought |
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>> If science can land a man on the moon ... what could be so
>> tough about finding varroa's Achilles heel?
> I will proceed as if this is a serious question.
> ...putting a man on the moon was a national goal and millions
> of dollars were spent on it. No such imperative exists to wipe
> out varroa.
Actually, this is a very serious question.
Millions of dollars have been spent on the problems caused and/or
exacerbated by varroa and not a lot on understanding varroa itself. Why
is this not an imperative? Is the mite too profitable?
This problem is solvable, but apparently everyone has decided it isn't
and the preoccupation these days is tinkering with awkward, expensive
and ineffective half-solutions and workarounds that do not address the
central problem, (That would be _varroa itself_ for those who have lost
track).
This pest problem is not like mosquitoes or other pests which are out in
the wild spaces with multiple hosts and hard to nail down.
This pest is, for all intents and purposes, restricted to one very
defined host and one definite and restricted environment -- our bees and
our beehives. (The ferals, are not a huge problem if we can deal with
varroa in our own hives).
Varroa has a very clear and defined life cycle. It appears to be very
vulnerable that way. We know exactly where varroa lives, and exactly
what varroa does, but how much work has been done on its biology and
idiosyncrasies? There are immense differences between varroa and its
host. There must be something simple that kills varroa and has no
effect on honey bees.
We are killing off many desirable species every day, why not this
undesirable one?
Turning varroa destructor into an endangered species should be like
shooting fish in a barrel.
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