Hi All,
Wow, what a crazy winter/spring in California. Nonstop rain, muddy almond orchards, poor conditions for mating queens. We hope that the flip side will be enough soil moisture for summer nectar flows.
I've recently posted several new articles to ScientificBeekeeping.com, as well as am asking for volunteers for two citizen science projects--one a simple 4-question survey; the other involving taking stickyboard counts to quantify mite drift. Instructions for both below.
If you go to http://scientificbeekeeping.com/articles-by-publication-date/, you'll see the new articles up for 2019. The first is about the mechanisms by which honey bee colonies can manage to keep varroa in check. This is close to my heart, since we're in our second year of a serious selective breeding program for mite resistance. This year I've identified some 25 colonies (out of 1500) that have managed to keep varroa levels well below a 1% infestation rate for a full year, in commercial apiaries, with zero mite treatments. Over a dozen of these tested at zero mites in an alcohol wash after their return from almond pollination! We will replace all the queens in our operation with daughters of those mite-resistant mothers.
I was asked by the previous editor of ABJ to write an article on pesticides and bees. Of course, since I don't like to write shallow articles, that article grew to series--first looking at The Pesticide Issue from the standpoints of the various stakeholders.
The most recent article is on my proposed citizen science project to quantify the amount of mite immigration into colonies late in the season. I will be writing about the results of my field experiment on this, in which I found that in my area, mite immigration appeared to be the result of drifting bees, rather than the robbing of collapsing hives. But a researcher from the East found that in that environment, robbing was a major cause of mite immigration. Upon further discussion, I realized that in some environments, robbing doesn't take place as colonies are collapsing, whereas in other areas it does. So I'm asking for simple responses to a survey (see SURVEY below), as well as volunteers to measure mite immigration in their area (see IMMIGRATION PROJECT below).
SURVEY
It's recently come to my attention that there's a difference between what happens to hives on the West Coast of North America, compared to the East Coast, when they collapse from varroa/DWV.
Here in California, varroa collapses typically occur during September through October, or even August through November. One week there's a strong colony with lots of flight; a week or two later there's no bees in the hive, only a slight scattering of sealed brood, and plenty of honey left in the hive. That honey typically does not get robbed out for some time--often not starting until weeks later. This despite that fact that such collapses typically occur during our prolonged late-season nectar dearth. And we frequently see a hive with barely a handful of workers left, somehow appearing to defend a hive full of honey.
On the other hand, I've heard reports from the Northeast that collapsing colonies get quickly robbed, starting even while there are remaining guard bees attempting to stop the robbers.
This difference would have a huge impact upon hive-to-hive mite drift--whether it is due to robbing, or due to bee drift. One may be more important than the other in certain areas.
I'm asking for reports from beekeepers all over the country and the world. Please reply to me directly at randy@randyoliver.com, with the word "Collapse" in the subject line.. Please keep your reports BRIEF, and answer four questions (using the words in parentheses for your answer):
1. Your region? (state, country, province, etc).
2. The typical period of varroa/DWV collapses in your region? (month--month).
3. Do varroa/DWV collapses in your area typically occur during, or immediately after a nectar flow, or during a dearth? (during flow, immediately after, dearth)
4. Do the collapsed hives get robbed out immediately or later? (immediately or later).
Example of an answer:
1. Northern California foothills
2. Sept-Oct
3. Dearth
4. Later
Thanks,
Randy
randy@randyoliver.com
IMMIGRATION PROJECT
I'm asking for volunteers to set up one or more hives to measure the amount of mite immigration in late summer.
This is done by eliminating ALL the mites in the hives in advance with synthetic miticide strips applied in May or June.
Then count mite drop twice a week from late August through October.
Details at http://scientificbeekeeping.com/mite-drift-quantification/
We beekeepers can answer many of our questions ourselves, by working together to collect this sort of hard data.
Bee happy!
Randy
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