GPaolo Vigone wrote
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###From: <[log in to unmask]>
###Subject: Varroa mite
###Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 16:54:33 +0100
###
###I need simple and practicle suggestions about Varroa mite damages, particu
###about natural methods of its prevention.
###
###I'm using the Bruzzi's Internet access. Please refer to GPaolo Vigone.
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Hello GPaolo Vigone!
As long a your hive is healthy with a young queen I would do
nothing but observe the bees and their relationship with the mites.
That is what I have been doing for several years as my neighbors use
chemicals to treat. After many treatments several of these beekeepers
who keep their bees in the same area as I do, or within a few miles,
got together and ran some samples on my hives for mites, at the same
time they did the same on their own.
The results were that they found out my bees DID have mites. They
also found out something they did not want to find out. My bees had no
more mites then their own, and in most cases less. My own bees have
never been treated, most others in this area have been treated for
three seasons and some twice per season.
It has been predicted by many in the know that all my bees are
going to die. I have found out from forty seasons of working with
bees in this area that if you do not continuously replace failing hives
with new, that they will all die withing three to four years. The mites
have not changed this in any way that I can see.
This is not to say that mites are good for bees. What I have seen is
that hives that one would expect to decline from what ever cause, that
have v. mites, will have them when the hive dies, if nothing is done to
reverse that decline and the hive dies. I have yet to see anything that
would give me concern that the v. mites are adding to the number of
hives that die or are replaced each year, or that number would be any
less if more attention were paid to mites.
What I have written here is considered as blasphemous by most
beekeepers and I have paid a high price within the industry for saying
almost the same about my experience with t. mites and challenging the
destruction of thousands of hives of bees because they contained mites.
My opinion has not changed, bees will have pests, and well meaning
beekeepers will spend millions to control them, and bees will have
pests. A healthy dog suffers little from fleas, I believe hives that
are healthy in all other respects suffer little from mites.
Only time will tell, until then I suffer the little barbs and
arrows of my fellows, as I know I have looked into more beehives
and have seen many wonderful interesting things in my beehives the
last forty years then most any two beekeepers and hope to continue,
if my bees don't all die.. CIAO
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