Seasons on a big round world moving around the Sun; and when you up north
start to get active, or very active in Bee-l, me (or should I say we?) at
the southern hemisphere are on the hectic part of our season: swarm
control, moving from pollination to honey places and the like. Not easy to
follow the thread less easy to participate.
Add to that my dreadfull biology background and running 5000 colonies at
Chile and a similar amount at Perú.
Well, said that, I tend to agree with everyone but need to find like
Sinatra "My way".
So,
1.- As there is no current resistant/tolerant bees, I treat.
2.- As I understand nasty chemical end up spoling our honey and our bees I
have been testing different treatment methods and or the past year and a
half the only treatment (at Chile and Perú) have been glycerox, monoxalate,
or oxalic in glicerin, what ever you want to call it. IT WORKS, It is cheap
and oxalic is already in honey.
http://apiaraucania.blogspot.cl/2016/01/monoxalato-como-control-de-varroa.html
3.- I have been promoting this cheap method with in my colleagues and all
of them are very happy and have beautifull hives so far. Next step for my
energy will be to try to coordinate a national or regional treatment so as
to lower varroa on a territorial basis. If I succed in this effort I
believe we win time for the experts or nature to develop the bees we need.
4.- Eventhough my practical approach I try to follow research and science
as close as possible and I do not believe Higienic Behavior works for
controling varroa. It does work for other maladies, particularly American
Foolbrood, but based on this paper (see below) it will never work against
varroa and if it does work, because larvae is dead we will end up with
small and useless colonies. So yes to higienic bees but forget that will
keep varroa under control.
Paul Page, Zheguang Lin, Ninat Buawangpong, Huoqing Zheng, Fuliang Hu,
Peter Neumann, Panuwan Chantawannakul, Vincent Dietemann. Social apoptosis
in honey bee superorganisms. Scientific Reports, 2016; 6: 27210 DOI:
10.1038/srep27210
This (Open Access) article published in Nature’s Scientific Reports raises
an interesting perspective on the ‘natural’ tolerance of Apis cerana (the
Eastern Honey bee) to Varroa destructor infections. Their experimental data
suggests that rather than superior strength it might actually be a significant
vulnerability that protects the colony from the mites. Young A.cerana
larvae seem to be much more susceptible to varroa and much more likely to
die. Their early death triggers hygienic behaviour early on, and the dead
larvae and their parasites are removed quickly disrupting varroa’s ability
to reproduce successfully. Just as old and diseased bees are thought to fly
away to die, preventing the spread of disease, these young larvae confer a
kind of social immunity with their early sacrifice.
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