Spider venom saving bees was not on my bingo card, but this is genuinely cool. Obviously "works on mites in the lab" is a long way from "works safely and cheaply in a real hive", but varroa is such a nasty problem that even a new direction is worth paying attention to
Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
111–120 of 148 posts
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#112I grew up on a farm on which the apiary and all connected with it was a major part of the farm's output. Honey, beeswax, nukes (a queen and 10K or so worker bees as a starter colony, sold to other apiaries in the spring if they'd had too many winter losses), fertilizing services (drop a couple colonies off at a berry farm after dark, pick the colonies up two weeks later, profit!) and other products. It's been over te…
Wow... And I think designing the hive so the bees' own grooming behavior is actually effective seems like a much better first line of defense
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fascinating, thanks. What does winterization involve? I looked it up online but there's a whole bunch of different information. Also how cold does it get?
A typical winter day would be a high of -6 Celcius and a low of -20, but there would be cold snaps of -20 or colder. Winterization itself was several things. 1. In late fall we'd make sure each colony had enough honey to fuel them through to spring (a quick lift would tell you). If short, we'd put sugar saturated water in a tray on top of the colony. The bees would move the sugar into the colony and a couple days lat…
I had no idea winter survival could come down to getting one brief warm spell at the right time so the colony can loosen up and move a few inches
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#114Honeybees are not native to North America. It is great and currently necessary we use them the way we do. It makes one wonder in the age of AI and evolving farm practices, can we start finding ways to cultivate already-climate-adapted native bees to do the work? Can we leverage adaptations for specific crops? I get it that honeybees work great at pollinating monoculture fields, etc., but that does not change the fact…
The hard part is probably that "native bees" are not a drop-in replacement for managed hives you can put on a truck and move between farms
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#115Honeybees are not native to North America. It is great and currently necessary we use them the way we do. It makes one wonder in the age of AI and evolving farm practices, can we start finding ways to cultivate already-climate-adapted native bees to do the work? Can we leverage adaptations for specific crops? I get it that honeybees work great at pollinating monoculture fields, etc., but that does not change the fact…
I suppose honey bees are not native in North America pretty much the same way as the human species? I don’t quite understand why there seems to be a pretty persistent thread around “honey bees are invasive and harm the ecosystem by stealing all the food from the native bees and doing all their pollination; that’s why they decline” - when at the same time the use of pesticides is so rampant that insects are literally…
I think the problem is that these things can both be true. Pesticides can be a much bigger threat to native insects, while dense managed honeybee populations can still put extra pressure on native bees in some places
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#116I grew up on a farm on which the apiary and all connected with it was a major part of the farm's output. Honey, beeswax, nukes (a queen and 10K or so worker bees as a starter colony, sold to other apiaries in the spring if they'd had too many winter losses), fertilizing services (drop a couple colonies off at a berry farm after dark, pick the colonies up two weeks later, profit!) and other products. It's been over te…
This is one for https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights!
(I mention this so more people can know the list exists. All are welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com when you see comments we should add!)
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#117I grew up on a farm on which the apiary and all connected with it was a major part of the farm's output. Honey, beeswax, nukes (a queen and 10K or so worker bees as a starter colony, sold to other apiaries in the spring if they'd had too many winter losses), fertilizing services (drop a couple colonies off at a berry farm after dark, pick the colonies up two weeks later, profit!) and other products. It's been over te…
> We would still sometimes treat for varroa, but making it easier for the bees to handle varroa how they had evolved to was the first line of defence I thought this was very dependent on the species -- European honeybees did not evolve to deal with varroa mites, because the mites originated in Asia. Asian honeybees, and honeybees bred with them, do have better ways of dealing with the mite; you said regular Italian b…
One of the characteristics bee breeders look for is hygiene- more hygienic bees will remove more of their own mites. It’s not entirely dependent on the type of bee.
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's hard to generalize whether vertical farms are good or bad; efficient or inefficient. It seems that whether it works or not relies very heavily on the locality. In my part of Ohio, we have lots of farmland -- and plenty of water that just falls out of the sky. We've got reasonably-long, generally-hot days during our growing season and we get some serious crop production done here while it lasts. The rest…
Just thinking like if something doesn't grow in winter, is it because of lack of plant's adaptation or is it because their primary vector for seed dispersal hasn't adapted to survive in that weather or may be because it is not safe to consume in that season. Or simply put, can wild animals eat tomatoes safely(on evolutionary timescale) in winter if they don't normally grow in winter.
I'd like to choose Option C:
The tomato is native to places like Peru and Ecuador, and eventually was moved to [what is now known as] Mexico as we kept bringing it further north.
The tomato is Ohio's state fruit[1], but it does not belong in Ohio. The only reason we have tomatoes growing in Ohio is humans; nature has nothing to do with it. They wouldn't be here without people dilly-whacking with things.
(And I'm glad they did so. Tomatoes are delicious.)
[1]: Seems weird but it be that way anyhow. Ohio also has a native state fruit, which is the paw paw.
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#119I grew up on a farm on which the apiary and all connected with it was a major part of the farm's output. Honey, beeswax, nukes (a queen and 10K or so worker bees as a starter colony, sold to other apiaries in the spring if they'd had too many winter losses), fertilizing services (drop a couple colonies off at a berry farm after dark, pick the colonies up two weeks later, profit!) and other products. It's been over te…
a mesh bottom board, is one part of an integrated plan.
varroa mites are obligate to brood, so interruption of brood cycle should be integrated into your cultural plan. here we are on the edge of swarming season, which is perfect time for artificial splits of hives.
you intercept swarming by moving roughly half the bees and the queen into a "package", and removing brood from the original hive except for one frame of brood. rehive the artificial swarm after 2 or three days.
this creates a break in brood cycle, allows adult bees to clean and shake free of mites, interrupts the mite brood cycle, and mitigates swarm loss.
some will cage the queen to break brood cycle however this is stressful, and must be accompanied by more hive space, or reduction of bee population.
Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees
#120Honeybees are not native to North America. It is great and currently necessary we use them the way we do. It makes one wonder in the age of AI and evolving farm practices, can we start finding ways to cultivate already-climate-adapted native bees to do the work? Can we leverage adaptations for specific crops? I get it that honeybees work great at pollinating monoculture fields, etc., but that does not change the fact…
This is also a submarine story and has been for well over a decade.
https://www.bpia.org/2014/11/spider-venom-snowdrops-shield-b...
And yes it's a "square peg round hole" problem, but the issue is that the solutions don't exist yet without driving up the price of everything we eat.