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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Elizabeth Pratson <epratson AT gmail.com>
  • To: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>
  • Cc: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>, Phil DeGuzman <phil.deguzman AT gmail.com>, Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Fungi to save bees?
  • Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2016 08:54:18 -0400

Interesting discussion.
On a similar note, I lost 2 of my 3 hives a couple weeks ago (I think due to mites) and have been cleaning up the old frames.  I want to make sure there is no remnant disease on my equipment, so I’ve removed all the old foundation and scraped as much wax off as I can.  I was wondering if anyone has done further precautions to kill any disease like heat treatment (It’s about 30+ frames, and I thought I could heat them up in batches in my oven), or with a bleach solution.  They’ve been sitting in the sun, but I just want to make sure that I get rid of whatever harmed them.

Thanks so much,
Elizabeth Pratson

On Mar 21, 2016, at 11:44 PM, John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com> wrote:

I think we all agree that until something better comes along beekeepers have several controls that can be used to mitigate the effects of varroa. But I offer the following distinction between Randall's definition of natural and my definition of natural which I think is more consistent with the permaculture view that Phil endorses.

Randall argues correctly that we already have "natural treatments." But those treatments require active intervention by a beekeeper to introduce the natural substance into the colony. The intervention of the beekeeper is the unnatural element here. Bees don't gather formic acid, oxalic acid or thymol in quantities or delivery modalities sufficient to self-treat for varroa. The beekeeper is the delivery mechanism.

What Phil and others hope for is that further research may someday offer a natural treatment that the bees can and will harvest without the intervention of the beekeeper. A treatment that will be sufficient in both quantity and delivery modality to be an effective self-treatment. To paraphrase "Apis mellifera heal thyself." passive fungal supplement - at least with respect to the beekeeper's role - would be an improvement. The bee is the delivery mechanism. I see that as a truly natural solution if it results in reduced mite/viral loads. 

The ultimate outcome of this fungal research is unknowable and, at best, many years away. But the optimists among us continue to keep our fingers crossed that a solution might be found (fungal or even botanical) that passively benefits bees and beekeepers alike by reducing the mite/viral load in the colony.

Of course, those of the 'glass half empty' persuasion can argue that there is still likely to be a bit of active beekeeper intervention in that the beekeeper will have to introduce spores of the correct fungal strain to a suitable growth media in a location acceptable to the colony so that the bees have ready access to this new source of healing and/or mite killing fungus. 

And, for the record, I am not offended by Randall's comments or Phil's comments because the discussion has been civil and informative. I see this listserv as an open forum for the respectful exchange of information and ideas about beekeeping best practices. Participants should feel free to bring new ideas, new approaches, questions and comments to this listserv w/o fear of ridicule or condescension. I think this fungi discussion is an example of how this listserv best serves the beekeeping community. Like Randall I believe that controlling varroa is critical colony health. Without control our bees will die. But there is room for differing perspectives on our individual hopes and aspirations for new approaches to accomplish that varroa control. Like Phil I encourage research into natural alternatives (as I define natural) to supplement the natural tools (as Randal defines natural) that we already have in our arsenal.

Final word from me - send a check to your favorite university bee research facility. Better yet, write your elected representatives to encourage their support of basic bee research. We need all of the evidence-based research we can get.

John 

On Mar 21, 2016, at 2:44 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:

Phil,

A thousand apologies, I must have missed the mark. You certainly didn't offend me. If you'll notice, the remark I responded to was John's, not yours. And John didn't offend me either. I agree that the fungus article is interesting, although I am highly skeptical that it will come to fruition. Many hurdles exist with new treatments; a mite-killing substance is just a small part of it. A practical delivery mechanism is critical, and is what stumps many great ideas in this arena.

I agree 100% with your overall sentiment, and I agree 100% that good IPM principles imply that we need a variety of EFFECTIVE treatments. Rotating treatments is good practice. My comment was that we don't need to hope that one day we will have a "natural" treatment, as the tenor of the article implied, because we already have "natural" treatments. I certainly welcome new treatments if they are better than existing treatments. I hope you agree that not treating with existing, effective treatments today because we are waiting for even better treatments tomorrow (with no guarantee that they are better, just different) would be an odd thing to do.

I seriously doubt that the thymol treatment, if properly applied, was the proximate cause of your losses. I would suggest from your description of your colony management that perhaps you were applying treatment in a reactionary, "hail Mary" mode rather than getting ahead of varroa and controlling it. If that was the case, I would expect colony failure after 3 or 4 years (actually a lot sooner) whether you had applied thymol or not. Thymol doesn't get rid of the viruses that kill colonies, just the bugs that vector the viruses. Giving folks in the cancer ward a flu shot is too little, too late. And hopefully I don't offend with that comment; I'm just trying to educate folks on the list about the realities of varroa infestation. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away.

Randall

On 3/21/2016 2:06 PM, Phil DeGuzman wrote:
Thanks Randall. I get where you are coming from. There are established products that when applied appropriately are essentially nontoxic.  Basically I am reading your point as if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But let me offer that from a permaculture perspective, we try to minimize bringing in recurring inputs to our farming ventures. Permaculture attempts to create bio-diverse systems that are regenerative and somewhat self sustaining. We all have our own agendas and battles we choose to join, and I strive to incorporate permaculture principles wherever possible. For me, after four successful years of non-chemical beekeeping (the two hives I started with grew to four), I lost all of my hives last year after my first attempt at applying a thymol treatment.

It was news to me that there might be a way a beekeeper could cultivate an additional arrow in the quiver against Varroa (just like one might plant flowers or trees to give the bees more resources) I thought it sounded interesting and thought I'd share. Perhaps my sentiment about remaining chemical free strike you as rhetoric. 

I for one am very interested in any techniques that protect the value of my property, invite me to connect with nature, appeal to my systems way of thinking, and especially minimize my labor and/or input costs. That is why I raise cattle using rotational grazing instead of chemical fertilizer, I raised chickens on pasture rotation behind the cattle, and build whatever I can from salvage materials like barnwood and site-sourced lumber. If I can reduce buying inputs, and I can achieve 80% success with the solutions, I will.

I'm not trying to persuade anyone, just gathering and sharing information. Sorry if I offended you.

Phil

On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 12:36 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:
We already have effective varroacide treatments made from naturally-occurring formic acid, naturally-occurring thymol, naturally-occurring oxalic acid and naturally-occurring hops, although the periodic "new natural breakthrough on the horizon" articles never mention that (I'm sure the journalists have no clue about apiculture). We don't need to wait for "natural substances", they are already here.

We also need to remember that varroa destructor is NOT a "natural predator" of Apis mellifera. It jumped from another species (Apis cerana) very recently -- probably within the last 75 years. So I'm not sure how or why "natural" is such an important requirement for getting rid of an un-natural threat. I completely agree with the desire for low/no residues in wax and honey, low/no lasting adverse impacts on bees, low cost and easy administration that is safe for the beekeeper, but if somebody comes up with a synthetic product that satisfies ALL of those criteria, I'll be first in line to buy it IF it is genuinely better than the existing options.

I'm not itching for a fight (and especially not with my good friend John), just trying to encourage folks to move beyond rhetoric.

Randall


On 3/21/2016 9:48 AM, John Rintoul wrote:
I will be keeping my fingers crossed hoping for a natural approach to some of the problems that we see with our bees.




--
"There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all." ― Peter F. Drucker

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