Robert,
It sounds like you are searching for a "whole hive assessment
technique" that will tell you, by total count and not a sample,
how many phoretic mites you have at that moment and simultaneously
remove the phoretic mites. To me, it sounds like an Oxalic Acid
vaporizing treatment is what you are describing. It will zap a
huge percentage of the phorectic mites, which will mostly fall to
the bottom board. Assuming you are using a screened bottom with a
sticky-board insert, you can easily count the number of mites. The
equipment and protocols to do this are already established.
Mission accomplished?
I completely, 100% support your goals and your mindset! Your
philosophy is dead on. I just think that the means to accomplish
your immediate task (whole-hive sampling) have already been made
available. In fact the technique has been used for many years as a
means of determining the efficacy (or lack thereof) of certain
treatments -- Test Treatment A is applied to a hive, the sticky
board is examined, then Gold Standard Treatment (which used to be
Apistan) is applied to see how many mites were missed.
No doubt you can come up with a way to do it differently but
given the simplicity of OA application, I'm questioning whether
you can do it more easily.
Readers, please don't think that I am endorsing OA as a wonderful
Varroa treatment. Per the label directions, for Varroa control it
should be applied during during broodless periods (e.g. mid
December). That timing doesn't coincide well with the optimal time
for removing mites from the annual cycle of the honey bee colony
-- August/September is the key time to have "clean bees", so that
"clean" nurse bees can raise "clean" winter bees (the ones that
must live three or four months). Waiting until winter to treat
means we are treating bees that are already sick. But as a one-off
flash treatment for the purposes Robert is describing, it fits the
bill.
Randall
On 5/21/2017 5:36 PM, Robert King
wrote:
A4033050-BCD4-4815-81DD-657F801A80D8 AT gmail.com">
Hi Randall,
Thanks for your reply. My goal, at
least in part, is to find a treatment that works well enough, to
quickly analyze the phonetic mite levels in a colony, similar to
the sugar roll, that integrates with regular beekeeping
practices which will make mite testing more efficient.
Folks doing the "no-treat" method or
many unacceptable methods (mineral oil every week) are dangerous
to the beekeeping community as a whole by allowing their bees to
carry mites and should test for mites at a minimum. My thought
is that if you make testing easy, then hopefully it will be
done.
I am not trying to re-invent the
wheel, rather take a different approach with evaluating mites
which is natural and efficient. Sugar rolls take about 10
minutes per hive and rid the mites of 300 bees. If I could test
for mites in 10 to 15 seconds and rid my colonies of 50% of
phonetic mites, while keeping all bees alive, I'd call that a
net gain.
At the end of the day, you are going
to have to treat for mites with formic acid or a treatment that
penetrates the cells when the flow is not "on" in order to rid
your colony of most mites. Finding a test that helps rid the
phonetic mites and attempts to keep mites from spreading amongst
foragers, I think will help prevent our hives from being
re-infected with gravid females who pop out eggs and start the
whole process over again more quickly.
This mite problem is so endemic to
the world wide population of honeybees, my hypothesis (and
others too) is that it will take a multi layered approach to
keep the mites at bay. One of the big challenges that I see in
the world is the hobbyist that is all natural and does not
treat, but worse yet, dos not test.
I have been working on converting
some of the "no treat" folks I run across online into believing
in testing, at a minimum. I find the biggest problem is that
the "no treat" folks are brainwashed into thinking that
honeybees will adapt faster than mites and nature will take care
of itself. In addition, I think that some of them are lazy, but
most all have not had a class. This is my effort to help these
folks to test for mites in order to protect my bees from what
could be negligent beekeeping practices.
Please let me know if you think that
my thought process if off here. Please poke holes in my
discussion and prove me wrong.
Kind regards,
Robert King
Sent from my iPhone
Robert,
Way back then, all sorts of things were desperately being
tried to combat mites because the one treatment that
beekeepers had, Apistan (fluvalinate), was quickly showing
undesirable aspects to its profile. For example, at one point
burning sumac leaves was considered the next wonder treatment.
A couple of important quotes from the article that should not
be overlooked:
"After 30 seconds, smoke from the grapefruit leaves knocked
down 90 to 95 percent of the mites in the cage test." Thirty
seconds of smoke is a heck of an exposure for honey bees. I
would expect absconding to be a real risk in a real-world
test. In a cage test, they cannot abscond.
"With grapefruit leaves, however, few of the mites are killed.
Most simply fall off the bees." So this suggests the treatment
isn't really all that powerful... or effective. If I remember
correctly, folks found that any "gummy" type leaves would
produce the same effect (sumac, tobacco, etc.).
"We're not yet telling beekeepers to use these methods for
controlling varroa mites," says Eischen. "We're using these
experiments to try to identify and isolate the chemicals that
act as miticides." And they never did end up telling
beekeepers to use these methods because they haven't proven
effective. And the chemicals in grapefruit leaves must not
have panned out... unless perhaps they led to formic acid,
thymol or oxalic acid treatments.
I don't feel a need to repeat Dr. Eischen's experiments that
didn't end up going anywhere... he has already done that.
Furthermore, any "flash treatment" -- a one-shot-deal that
only gets at the phoretic mites at that moment -- is greatly
inferior to the way that ApiGuard, ApiLife Var, MiteAway Quick
Strips and ApiVar work. If you are interested in
highly impressive one-shot results (as good as Eischen's
grapefruit smoke), then all you need is Oxalic Acid, which is
well tested, labeled for control of Varroa mites (with clear
easy-to-follow directions) and cheap.
It is very interesting to read historical articles like this
to gain an appreciation of the chronology of the development
of today's mite treatments. I've seen many come and go in the
short time I've been beekeeping (ApiLife Var had just come on
the market as a restricted product [licensed applicator only]
when I first got bees). Sucrocide, for example, was a great
idea, it just wasn't nearly as good an idea as the things that
came along and pushed it into obscurity. Grapefruit smoke is
in the same category.
Randall
On 5/21/2017 12:07 PM, Robert
King wrote:
D9E3F27E-94CE-4959-A0FE-289AD2BA6965 AT gmail.com">
My actual focus was to use grapefruit tree leaves since
some grapefruit grow in this area. My brother has 2 very
large ones in his yard in Monroe. Creosote trees are not
indigenous to this area and grow primarily in the
Southwest. They are not illegal to burn, however creosote
treated wood is illegal to burn. As they actually harm
bees, I would not use creosote, but will be trying
grapefruit leaves.
If anyone has any practical
experience with grapefruit leaves and treating mites while
scientifically tracking their treatments, I'd like to hear
from you.
Kind regards,
Robert King
Sent from my iPhone
No, I haven't tried this. Creosote is listed by
the CDC as a "probable carcinogenic compound." Not
a good choice in a colony that produces a food
consumed by humans.
Thankfully research on varroa treatments has
come a long way in the 20+ years since desperate
scientists evaluated toxic compounds like
creosote. Consider a donation to Dr. Tarpy's lab
NCSU to thank them for research efforts to find
safe, effective varroa treatments and other ways
to support bees and beekeepers in NC. It is great
way to thank them for the past 20 years of effort
on behalf of our honey bees.
NCSU College of
Agriculture and Life Sciences
Apiculture Science
Fund
Gardner
Hall
Campus
Box 7613
Raleigh,
NC 27695
John Rintoul
(919) 414-4071
No
trees or bees were killed in the
distribution of this message, but
countless electrons were seriously
inconvenienced.
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