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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>, Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Unscientific survey
  • Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2016 12:33:20 -0400

John,

A few of points:
1) in a "reasonable" hive under normal conditions, we would expect varroa counts to be fairly low right now. The bee colony population is at its yearly high so mites-per-bee is at a low ratio. There are a lot of mites in the hive but they are spread around among a large number of bees. When the bee population, especially the number of brood cells, falls off going into summer and fall, the mites-per-bee ratio will skyrocket.  In a recent American Bee Journal article, Randy Oliver had a great graph showing this dynamic. By October, it is quite plausible that every single pupa could be infested in an uncontrolled or ineffectively controlled colony. Since mites both vector and activate more than 18 viruses that are either lethal or detrimental to bee health, it is no wonder that people who don't take mite control seriously lose large percentages of their colonies every year. The articles <here> and <here> touch on these topics.

2) I haven't seen eye-popping numbers of small hive beetles (SHB) in at least 4 or 5 years. I practice common-sense beetle management (described <here>). The year that I saw lots of beetles was the year that I had a new-beekeeper neighbor who was, shall we politely say, misled in his management practices. He was raising huge crops of beetles that flew over into my hives. Fortunately for me, he couldn't keep his bees alive and couldn't afford to keep replacing them so he got discouraged and took up some other hobby. The past few years I have of course seen SHB but not more than a few at a time and they don't do any harm at all (I attribute that to the management techniques described in the article). I expect that we will all see more SHB (compared to right now) as the summer progresses and the bee populations in the hive wane.

3) As with my SHB experience, the varroa management practices of your neighbors can affect the varroa levels in your colonies. Maybe your wise tutelage has influenced fellow beekeepers to use genuinely effective, legal treatments in a proactive way and so your whole area benefits from a lower varroa load. Conversely, research shows that varroa from poorly managed colonies infest nearby colonies, especially in late summer/fall. One OCBA member has lamented to me how he has 2 bee yards, one with few bee-neighbors (and those practice proper varroa management) and another with neighbors who proudly scoff at proper management practices and so have high losses every year. He consistently has much lower varroa counts in the first yard than in the second.

Regardless, if you find that your practices are working, take that as an encouragement to keep it up! Don't be lulled into thinking that the problems have moved on and are no longer threats.

Randall Austin


On 6/4/2016 11:24 AM, John Rintoul wrote:
0F8401A0-AA92-43CA-893D-5649AC6D94B6 AT icloud.com" type="cite">
I've done sugar shakes on each of my 3 hives and the hives of 2 new beekeepers that I am helping. So far none of the 5 hives has had more than 1 mite. It seems weirdly low to me.

I have not yet seen a small hive beetle this year either. 2 of my hives are in deep shade where SHB numbers are reputedly high. In past years I have usually seen 10-20 SHB corralled on top of the inner cover in my hives. Not one this year - yet.

Of course we all need to stay 'varroa vigilant'©, but I am curious know whether other Orange County beekeepers are experiencing similar differences in hive predator numbers between this year and prior years. 

John Rintoul
(919) 414-4071
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