ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
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- From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
- To: Robert Crook <crookkohler AT bellsouth.net>
- Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] Hive Beetle
- Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2017 08:58:04 -0500
Rob, SHB have migrated across the US much slower than Varroa mites
did. They are endemic in the southern states but still are rare or
unknown in many of the northern tier states, although they are
definitely on the move toward those areas. They can overwinter
within the bee cluster so cold winters aren't a major issue for
them. They first arrived in South Carolina in the late 90's and
reached my bee yard (northern Orange) in 2007 or so. It was still
another year or two before my friends in Person County ever saw
them. SHB are a major problem for folks who must keep small colonies, for example mating colonies for queen producers. There seems to be a lot of variability regarding how much harm they do in different situations and how easily they can be kept in check by the methods described in the article but I think that must mostly be dependent on colony strength, colony density and SHB density in the area. That's speculation on my part. The SHB article is a couple of years old so didn't mention Swiffer pads -- the flat fibrous cloth kind (unscented). Lots of folks report good results using them on the inner cover. The beetles' legs get entangled in the fibers and the bugs subsequently die there. They don't catch many/any beetles for me but I don't have major beetle infestations. A downside is that they can also trap bees' legs (or is it bees' knees?), but usually only a few bees will be entrapped. Varroa mites are pretty much everywhere that honey bees are,
except for Australia and equatorial Africa. They are deadly to
colonies wherever they are found. Tom Seeley, doing research in an
isolated forest in NY, once suggested that the isolated bees and
isolated mites developed into populations of less virulent mites,
but his more recent research seems to discount that hypothesis. So
with respect to Varroa mites, no, there doesn't appear to be an
environmental factor involved in their destructive abilities. That
makes sense because unlike SHB, the "environment" for a Varroa
mite is always/only/exclusively the back of a honey bee or a brood
cell, and those are the same everywhere. Completely unrelated point: Rob, you need to migrate your OCBA
List address to the new one: theocba AT googlegroups.com. Randall On 11/7/2017 11:59 PM, Robert Crook
wrote:
FFDF9FF9-FC75-4FBB-8A1F-70D69DBE2BD0 AT bellsouth.net"> |
-
[ocba] Hive Beetle,
Rob Cook, 11/07/2017
- Re: [ocba] Hive Beetle, Randall Austin, 11/07/2017
-
Message not available
-
Re: [ocba] Hive Beetle,
Robert Crook, 11/07/2017
- Re: [ocba] Hive Beetle, Randall Austin, 11/08/2017
-
Re: [ocba] Hive Beetle,
Robert Crook, 11/07/2017
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