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Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

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Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#131

Post by Hasz »

worldvoyageur wrote: post #78

I 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…

found this showing the grooming process, apparently actually getting the mite is tricky!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpdmDr7da6U

Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#132

Post by tim-tday »

halflife wrote: post #16
schainks wrote: post #15

Honeybees 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…

If they are not native, how did plant propagate seeds? Flies? Wasps? Butterflies?

There are hundreds of native bees. It’s the European honey bee that is not native. The native bees tend to be solitary or non honey producing small colony bees that hibernate instead of stocking honey for the winter. We tend to only care about honey producing bees for obvious reasons.

Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#133

Post by lostlogin »

worldvoyageur wrote: post #78

I 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…

It’s interesting where you’ve landed there. We haven’t had varroa as long I don’t think.

Here in New Zealand the colonies will die if untreated. I’m putting some OA/GL strips in them today.

Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#134

Post by lostlogin »

rolph wrote: post #119
worldvoyageur wrote: post #78

I 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…

A harsh winter probably helps with this. Where I am there is brood year round.

Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#135

Post by lostlogin »

roboben wrote: post #3

The hard truth these days is that the work of bee keeping is like 80% keeping the mites in check. Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible so you can only do it at the end of the season.

> all current treatments render the honey inedible

I don’t believe oxalic acid has a withdrawal period?

https://www.ceracell.co.nz/varroxsan-60-pack-15-treatments/

Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#136

Post by lostlogin »

moebrowne wrote: post #40
roboben wrote: post #3

The hard truth these days is that the work of bee keeping is like 80% keeping the mites in check. Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible so you can only do it at the end of the season.

> Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible Formic acid is one of the few treatments which is acceptable to use while honey is present.

Oxalic too according to the label.

https://www.ceracell.co.nz/varroxsan-60-pack-15-treatments/

Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#137

Post by lostlogin »

shevy-java wrote: post #5
roboben wrote: post #3

The hard truth these days is that the work of bee keeping is like 80% keeping the mites in check. Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible so you can only do it at the end of the season.

No. The mites are not what is killing the bees. And, by the way - natural pathogens exist in just about any population. These very, very rarely led to extinction. There is a media trend to claim the mites are at fault. This reminds me of prior fault yielding e. g. "mad cow disease" - and then the media also stopped doing any further investigation at that point. It's as if they have break points where you can not go p…

Do you keep bees?

If you control the varroa, the viral load and diseases burden goes way way down. It’s a basic fact of beekeeping, but sadly hard to achieve.

Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#138

Post by lostlogin »

chasil wrote: post #57

Powdered sugar is the standard treatment for removing varroa mites that have emerged from capped cells. "The peptides killed only the mites, while the bees survived." What benefits do these new treatments offer? They certainly won't be cheaper. https://www.honeybeesuite.com/can-powdered-sugar-control-var... Edit: "Treatments every week killed more mites than treatments every two weeks, which killed more mites than tr…

> Powdered sugar is the standard treatment

This is hilariously impractical and won’t do a thing for the mites in the capped brood.

The labour involved in doing this at scale would be prohibitive too.

Re: Spider venom kills varroa mites without harming honeybees

#139

Post by lostlogin »

bspammer wrote: post #63
chasil wrote: post #57

Powdered sugar is the standard treatment for removing varroa mites that have emerged from capped cells. "The peptides killed only the mites, while the bees survived." What benefits do these new treatments offer? They certainly won't be cheaper. https://www.honeybeesuite.com/can-powdered-sugar-control-var... Edit: "Treatments every week killed more mites than treatments every two weeks, which killed more mites than tr…

The article you linked lists a bunch of downsides to powdered sugar: it doesn’t kill the mites it just encourages the bees to brush them off, it has reduced effectiveness when it’s humid, it doesn’t work on mites that aren’t actively on a bees body, and it has to be applied regularly.

And it won’t worked on capped brood, so you have to dust them repeatedly.
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