>From the pages of Agricultural Research magazine
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/1997/mitesmoke0897.htm

Smoking Out Bee Mites

Beekeepers have a long-established practice of using smoke to calm their
bees before opening the hive. Now U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists
have found another potential benefit from smoke: Some plants, when burned,
give off natural chemicals that control honey bee mites.

Frank A. Eischen, an entomologist with USDA's Agricultural Research Service
in Weslaco, Texas, has found that smoke from certain plants either kills
varroa mites or causes them to fall off the bees.

This mite began infesting honey bee colonies in the United States in the
1980s, was discovered in 1987, and has since become the biggest threat to
managed honey bees. The mites attach to bees and feed on their blood. If the
infestation is severe and left untreated, the mites usually kill the colony.

The standard treatment for the mites is fluvalinate, a synthetic pyrethroid
harmless to the bees. Beekeepers put fluvalinate-impregnated strips in their
hives to kill mites, but they can use the strips only during times when bees
are not making honey. Otherwise, the chemical could contaminate it.

Another problem with fluvalinate is that European researchers have reported
that mites are developing resistance to the chemical.

Several years ago, Eischen began looking for alternative controls for mites.
So far, he has tested smoke from about 40 plants. The first one he tried was
a desert shrub called creosote bush, native to Mexico, Texas, and other
areas of the Southwest. A Mexican beekeeper, David Cardoso, had recommended
that Eischen test the olive-green plant, known in Mexico as gobernadora.

Eischen set up a standard lab test, placing 300 to 400 mite-infested bees
inside a cage and covering the cage with a plastic container. Then he put
the plant material inside his smoker, lit it, puffed the smoke into the
container, and corked the plastic container opening to prevent the smoke
from escaping.

He kept the smoke inside for 60 seconds, then removed the bees. Next, he
placed the bees over a white, sticky card to catch any mites that fell off
the bees.

"Lo and behold, the smoke from creosote bush was knocking down mites right,
left, and center," Eischen says. "It gave us the idea to start looking at
other plants that, when burned, give off chemicals that removed the mites
without harming bees."

Among the 40 different plants Eischen has tested, the most promising plants
are creosote bush and dried grapefruit leaves. Creosote bush smoke achieves
a 90 to 100 percent mite knockdown after 1 minute, but Eischen says that
excessive exposure can harm the bees. "It's similar to burning tobacco in
that respect," he says. "It's hard to find chemicals that remove mites
without harming bees."

Grapefruit leaves fit that description. After 30 seconds, smoke from the
grapefruit leaves knocked down 90 to 95 percent of the mites in the cage
test. With grapefruit leaves, however, few of the mites are killed. Most
simply fall off the bees.

"The smoke chemicals either irritate the mites or confuse them. We aren't
exactly sure," Eischen says. "But we do know that the grapefruit leaf smoke
doesn't seem to have any bad effects on the bees at all. The bees come
through fine."

Eischen stresses that the findings thus far are preliminary. "These are
crude experiments, and we haven't yet analyzed the active chemicals in the
smoke that knock down the mites," he says.

"We're not yet telling beekeepers to use these methods for controlling
varroa mites," says Eischen. "We're using these experiments to try to
identify and isolate the chemicals that act as miticides."--By Sean Adams,
ARS.


Sean Adams is on the Agricultural Research Service Information Staff; phone
(301) 344-2723, [log in to unmask]

Dr. Frank A. Eischen is at the USDA-ARS Honey Bee Research Laboratory, 2413
E. Hwy. 83, Weslaco, TX 78596; phone (210) 969-5005, fax (210) 969-5033,
[log in to unmask]

"Smoking Out Bee Mites" was published in the August 1997 issue of
Agricultural Research magazine.

Full text of article in .pdf format can be found from
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/

-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878   Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
                (9) 524 2949