Under the conditions of the common beekeeping practice in non-tropical regions, which are characterized by high colony densities, prevention of swarming and periodical mite control, it seems difficult to achieve a more balanced host-parasite relationship. Thus far, a long-term survival of A. mellifera colonies without any control measures is nearly exclusively reported from feral populations or colonies kept continuously under natural selection pressure
Varroa mites have evolved resistance to all available synthetic acaricides
In other words, this discovery is just another step following the footsteps of other failing herbicidal & insecticidal campaigns. Doing things nature's way is inconvenient, so we develop chemicals. But eventually, resistance is developed, and then we are in an arms race that will never end.
It would be nice to see more attention paid to the well-being of native pollinators, which already take care of themselves in regards to parasites & diseases, but whose numbers have been falling in recent years.
Managed honey bee colonies supplement the work of natural wild pollinators, not the other way around. In a study of 41 different crop systems worldwide, honeybees only increased yield in 14 percent of the crops. Who did all the pollination? Native bees and other insects.
>It would be nice to see more attention paid to the well-being of native pollinators, which already take care of themselves in regards to parasites & diseases.
There's a second avenue which is the treatment-free solution practiced by some beekeepers. The idea there is to keep the selection pressure and just out-evolve the parasites. Given that managed bees reproduce much more often than natural populations there's a chance it might work and some encouraging results:
Thanks for that link, lots of interesting stuff on there.
For anyone interested, (one of?) the way that this selection pressure manifests is in grooming behavior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWMSIbeKoFQ
The trade-off is less honey production and slower comb building.
This is true but misses the point. Beekeeping is done for the sake of pollination: flowering fruit and crop pollination is where the money is at and the focus of the beekeeping industry. The vast majority of managed bee colonies in the US are used for this purpose. Bloom times are region and species specific. California almonds, for example, are usually the earliest bloom. Hives will be moved around based on those patterns. We're not talking 5, 20, or 100 hives, we're talking 10,000 to 250,000 hives at the high end. As blooms end the hives are moved to new orchards through out the growing season. Think bee hives on flat beds crisscrossing the country. At that scale replacing queens gets very expensive (and the hive may reject her anyway) due to veroa mite stress and the loss of the hive is common. Any honey not used by the bees along the way is sold to third parties which in turn sell it to consumers.
I think there's a consensus going for breeding bees for varroa sensitive hygiene/ mite resistance, but treatment free is excessive. You don't need to let the colony die when you're concerned with selecting for genetics. Just eliminate the drones and remove the queen next season.
I mean, you can always withhold treatment until mite counts indicate a problem. Letting mite populations explode can impact other colonies(domesticated & feral) in the area as well.
All of life and evolution is a never ending arms race. I don't see what the problem is in applying human intelligence to that arms race. An important part of being human involves using our intelligence to manipulate nature in a way that is beneficial to us. If lithium chloride helps us with the goal of healthier honey bees by decreasing parasites, we should do it. We should also be researching and thinking of what to do if/when resistance evolves in the parasite. But, just because resistance can evolve, doesn't mean we despair of using chemicals to fight parasites.
Saying we need to keep fighting does not mean we need to fight as stupidly as possible.
With care we can prevent antibiotic resistance becoming significant for decades, or we can get it to show up in the first week an antibiotic is introduced. While parasites are slower to develop resistance we still face similar issues with Lice and other pests and we really should consider both the short and long term impacts of any approach which is directly fighting evolution.
It would be nice to see more attention paid to the well-being of native pollinators, which already take care of themselves in regards to parasites & diseases, but whose numbers have been falling in recent years.
I imagine that the reason this isn't done is because it's not in the interest of Big Ag's medium-term profits.
Perhaps- native pollinators may be impacted simply by "big ag" techniques, pesticides, or fertilizers, in which case changing practice to care for them is surely seen as burdeonsome, annoying, and impacting profits.
Or, it may be that native pollinators are simply invisible. In other words, they won't know what they've got until it's gone.
> Varroa mites have evolved resistance to all available synthetic acaricides
My understanding is that synthetics are a specific category of treatment. Oxalic doesn’t fall into that group and I don’t think lithium chloride would either, but someone more expert may have a better idea.
Using wood bleach was certainly not a panacea, it will be another tool we use along with tossing in powdered sugar. We can cycle through the various treatments but it is a losing war. This may allow commercial beekeepers to start using lithium chloride or oxalic acid. We will see if it gets abused.
Under the conditions of the common beekeeping practice in non-tropical regions, which are characterized by high colony densities, prevention of swarming and periodical mite control, it seems difficult to achieve a more balanced host-parasite relationship. Thus far, a long-term survival of A. mellifera colonies without any control measures is nearly exclusively reported from feral populations or colonies kept continuously under natural selection pressure
Varroa mites have evolved resistance to all available synthetic acaricides
In other words, this discovery is just another step following the footsteps of other failing herbicidal & insecticidal campaigns. Doing things nature's way is inconvenient, so we develop chemicals. But eventually, resistance is developed, and then we are in an arms race that will never end.
It would be nice to see more attention paid to the well-being of native pollinators, which already take care of themselves in regards to parasites & diseases, but whose numbers have been falling in recent years.
Managed honey bee colonies supplement the work of natural wild pollinators, not the other way around. In a study of 41 different crop systems worldwide, honeybees only increased yield in 14 percent of the crops. Who did all the pollination? Native bees and other insects.
https://www.wired.com/2015/04/youre-worrying-wrong-bees/
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/10/native-bees-are-bett...