11 ms·

Are Saskatraz bees an answer to colony collapse?

62 points by vezycash 7y ago

ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
The answer is to stop the overuse of pesticides.
- tptacek 7y ago
  Yeah. And Varroa destructor mites. We should definitely stop overusing those too.
  - ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
    Varroa destructor mites are a scapegoat, an issue in some areas with some hives. Corporations like to point to this in an attempt to shift blame.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      They literally eradicated feral honeybees.
      - nemo 7y ago
        Thomas Seeley's written extensively on feral honeybees. According to him they are thriving, and he's done a whole lot of fieldwork looking into this topic. https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Bees-Untold-Story-Honey/dp/0691166765 https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Bees-Untold-Story-Honey/dp/0691...
        tptacek 7y ago
        https://beesource.com/point-of-view/adrian-wenner/varroa-mite-spread-in-the-united-states/ https://beesource.com/point-of-view/adrian-wenner/varroa-mit...
        nemo 7y ago
        Weird. I'm not a beekeeper, nor a biologist, but Seeley's one of the top authorities on both - he picked up Karl von Frisch's work and extended it further translating bee language/communications. His accounts of site analyses across the country don't exactly agree with the claim of feral bees dying off. He does agree in a sense, but he's presented a lot of very compelling evidence that wild/feral bee colonies are evolving and adapting to survive Varroa mites through natural selection.
        tptacek 7y ago
        We don't have to agree completely; all that we have to agree on is that Varroa mites have in fact been a very big deal both to feral and controlled honey bee hives, and that they are not a smokescreen put up by pesticide companies.
        nemo 7y ago
        Varroa mites in the wild are a big deal. They are very troublesome with European honeybees, esp. those kept in Langstroth hives. In the wild, bees swarm regularly, and any time they swarm and form a new hive, the new hive not only rids itself of parasites but increases the genetic diversity that is needed to deal with pest resistance. The methods of modern beekeeping work diligently to prevent this. In the 20 years since the article you first linked to was written, more careful/extensive study of wild/feral bee populations has shown how they are better adapted to deal with this pest, which is a very important development in our knowledge of the issue. They aren't a smokescreen put up by pesticide companies, but they are a greater problem as a result of modern practices that limit natural behaviors and natural evolutionary responses that reduce the impact of the mites in wild and feral populations.
        tptacek 7y ago
        I've got no trouble believing any of that, though I'll observe that the honey bees don't "belong" in North America to begin with --- they're an invasive species.
rdtwo 7y ago
The site content is kind of weak, they had this bee strain for all of a year on how many hives? Not exactly convincing numbers
- cameron_b 7y ago
  I agree, I'd be interested in a followup in the second summer. How did they fare through the winter on how much honey? Were they interested in swarming, or how vigorously did swarm management / splits take place? And moreover ( assuming the queen was mated previously ) how did the real progeny workers do compared to the Italians?
  - evandev 7y ago
    I highly recommend the project report of the Saskatraz honeybee project rather than this individual's observations: http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/review.htm http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/review.htm
  - dwater 7y ago
    The original article includes a link at the bottom to a part 2 posted 6 months later that addresses many of your questions. https://whathappensonthehomestead.com/an-update-about-our-saskatraz-bees-theyre-doing-incredible/ https://whathappensonthehomestead.com/an-update-about-our-sa...
adultSwim 7y ago
native bees > honey bees
- evandev 7y ago
  With the large scale agriculture in America that native bees aren't well adapted for, we do need honeybees to pollinate the various plants. Especially if we want to reduce our consumption of beef and other animal products.
aritmo 7y ago
The article is indeed weak in detail and appears as a PR piece. It talks about a hybrid bee (Apis melifera) that has resistance to varroa mites. It does not explain how they achieve this resistance and just hints that maybe it is due to the longer legs of this hybrid. Or, they produce more propolis than other bees. While the article is titled about colony collapse, it talks about a hybrid that is somehow less susceptible to mites. Does not mention neonicotinoids, which mainly cause the colony collapse.
- evandev 7y ago
  This article is just a PR piece not for the type of bees, but this individual's blog. The research behind the bee is very sound in terms of varroa resistance.
  - newsreview1 7y ago
    Looks like a subjective hobby farmer blog. Not meant to be an expert. I can appreciate the piece, but would rather see more research, and less anecdotal or subjective information.
aritmo 7y ago
Varroa mites are a big issue with bees. They weaken the hive and introduce other disease. The article content does not match the title. The title should have been about the answer to varroa mites, not colony collapse.
- evandev 7y ago
  As per the article: > Infestation of varroa mites and tracheal mites have resulted in the declining health and death of many honey bee colonies. It is also considered to be a factor in the increase of colony collapse disorder that’s plaguing many areas of the world.
evandev 7y ago
I highly recommend reading the Saskatraz bee project report which has a lot more information and research on the bees: http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/review.htm http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/review.htm
worldvoyageur 7y ago
My dad is a beekeeper and I've been with bees all my life. A bee colony is a wonderful, inspiring emergent organism. When you know the bees, you can optimize for any dimension among many. Depending on the needs around our farm, we'd optimize for honey production, for pollen, for pollination services, for bee or queen production among others. Now, my dad optimizes for joy. A bit of honey to give the grandkids, friends and neighbours. Pollination services for the berry farms (those farmers are his buddies) in that critical time when blossoms must be pollinated or there will be no berries, nukes (what we call fresh new bees with a queen, the nucleus 'nuke' of a colony) for other beekeepers that need more bees, teaching at the local community college. Sometimes, we go into the bees with no protective gear. If you know the bees, you can do that. There is a sense of calm/zen/awe you get when among the bees that is hard to describe. All this is to say, it is misleading to think of colony collapse as a problem. Rather, it is a choice some beekeepers increasingly make to optimize other things. Death rates under 10% are quite possible with a different set of choices. We get single digit death rates, even near zero, but getting there gives up a lot of other dimensions. Bee production itself is so effective that it often makes economic sense to, in effect, stress a colony to death and replace it with a fresh one, rather than give the colony the space or attention needed to make it through. The economics is clearer if you have dozens or hundreds of colonies. Then, you have to handle them en mass and accept higher losses as a result. If you are going to hit peak pollination time in Florida, then truck your colonies across the continent to catch the sweet pollination money from California, you are going to stress your colonies far beyond what they can handle and lose a lot as a result. But, the oranges and the almonds will be pollinated and what you make will more than cover the cost of buying fresh new colonies. Running the bees to burn through them is not a choice I'd make, but I understand the math even as I don't need the bees to support my family.
- newsreview1 7y ago
  Appreciate this point of view, but it isn't just about over-stress. Varroa mites are a real problem. As a hobby apiarist myself, the influx of varroa mites has wreaked havoc on my bee colonies. Having read much of what is being done at the University of Sasketchwan, I am excited about a varroa mite-resistant breed. http://www.saskatraz.com/articles/New/The%20Saskatraz%20hybrid%20project%202015%20ver0122F.pdf http://www.saskatraz.com/articles/New/The%20Saskatraz%20hybr...
kpgraham 7y ago
I am a beekeeper and I have not had a colony collapse since I started treating the varroa mites with oxalic acid solution. Colony collapse is a generic term for hive failure and not a specific disease. Varroa is the main reason why my hives failed. The oxalic acid seems to fix this. I treat them after I harvest the honey in the fall. The varroa infestation dies down and the bees do well. The crisis in beekeeping is largely a misrepresentation of the facts by the press. Bees are doing well and the count of total hives is increasing each year in the US. I am going to order some Saskatraz queens, but mainly because they sound like an interesting hack.
- newsreview1 7y ago
  I've read (and experienced with my Carnolians) that oxalic acid treatments can sometimes take more toll than the mites themselves. Any thoughts about this? Have you had any causalities with its use?
  - kpgraham 7y ago
    Oxalic acid is not very toxic. I've read it slows down the bees for a few days, but I've not seen any impact on population. You get oxalic acid in a rhubarb pie and it is harmless. Bees get a very weak solution dribbled on the top of the frames for tens of thousands of bees. They don't get much at all. As far as pesticides, I am sure they harm bees, but CCD has pretty much gone since the aggressive treatment of varroa started. Russian bees are thought to have brought varroa with them. Before that there were pesticides and most were much more toxic including DDT but the bees were just fine.
tonyarkles 7y ago
It's always cool to see my province on HN for this or that. It seems that beekeeping has exploded in popularity around here in the last, say, decade or so. Driving around, there's a huge number of tents set up in canola and alfalfa fields to support colonies of Leafcutter Bees.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tvanantwerp 7y ago
I just spent two weeks in central Europe and was blown away by how many bees I saw. In the DC area, I might see one or two individual bees a week. But in one park in Prague, I saw several dozen buzzing among the flowers at once. And there were plenty more in every other location I visited, both urban and rural. This is just my anecdotal experience and it may mean nothing, but I was truly shocked by the differences in what I see.
- cafard 7y ago
  Plant milkweed and other plants they like, and you will see bees. I won't say that I've seen dozens at once in our front yard (in Washington, DC), but certainly a half dozen. And they visit our birdbath for water.
tehChromic76 7y ago
I ran two Saskatrqz colonies this year and one of my clients (I run a city-wide apiary network) was two more. We also capture around 50 'wild' swarms around town or year - some of these are from backyard hives but many are from well known, well established wild colonies living in trees or houses. In all cases the wild swarms outperformed Saskatrqz in terms of growth during the summer. But this is almost always the case that swarms outperform packages. We will do mite counts headed into fall and then will have a little bit of information. Colony loss from mites is over 50% yearly in town so it's #1 cause of death and a big concern for backyard keepers (in all the USA #1 cause of death is winter for backyard keepers, but here we don't have much winter). Varroa is #1 cause of death in industry as well. This is largely a human-made problem at this point. A local expert (UC Davis) told me that if industry quit treating for mites, 95% of hives would die which would be catastrophic for food. However the resulting stock would bounce back with strong Varroa resistance. I understand that in South Africa they undertook a practical application of the let nature run her course strategy and it worked. However in the USA at the heart of the big commercial AG industry, it's all treatment, all the time. That mentality bleeds into the backyard culture - the extension program which trains backyard beekeepers statewide teaches that if you don't treat for Varroa then you are a nuisance - the model says that when a hive dies from Varroa it's infected bees don't so die, they abandon colony and move into nearby colonies. I attended a conference once where they compared an untreated have to an atom bomb - the speaker had a huge screen behind him and there was an atom bomb video on loop. After his presentation they were giving away mite treatment strips from a major brand - this was an academic speaker, not an industry rep. The trouble with treating heavily for mites follow similar models which are well documented and fail: the rather pest gets resistance, the host gets weaker. Here in an small city in AG land where we are surrounded by commercial keepers, we have zero chance of developing local mite resistance. Our good survivor queens mate with drones from treated colonies where the is no selective pressure on bees to grow tolerance and higenic behavior. Likewise those commercial drones are a death sentence for wild bees. Even so, we continue to have colonies that persist year after year, generation after generation in town, and although most colonies for each year we end up with as many swarms as lost colonies, so break even. Many of my colonies across town count fewer mites than they did a few years ago. I think that in spite of industry, the small pocket of organic keeping going on here in town is having an event. I think as well industry is buying hiegenic queens. That's all speculation, although more informed than average. Mite resistant queens have been on the market for a decade - Russians, Carniolans, even a breed of blond Italian that was billed as varroa resistant was being sold in this neck of the woods. I tried all of them and lost them all to mites eventually. Before these breeds because available a local professor and breeder had developed an all black bee with reported excellent resistance. Saskatraz are only the lastest and the greatest. Maybe they will be the magic bullet. What's important is that the hiegenic genes remain in the population. To that end marketing like this when it's backed up by evidence is a positive thing. However what remains the most effective response to varroa is to do little and let nature run her course: let it bee.
Pfhreak 7y ago
Maybe some of the beekeepers in this thread can help me understand this. I live in the PNW, I've got a garden that I love to tend, and I make sure that I've always got something flowering. I've been really curious about maintaining a beehive for honey (and as an interesting project), but the amount of conflicting information online about raising bees in a suburban environment is unreal. Everything from, "You are doomed and also the honey will poison you because there's a rhododendron within 10 miles" to "Everyone should raise honeybees in their backyard! Totally maintenance free infinite honey!" A lot of the sites are super, for lack of a better term, "woo-woo". I wish there were more sites that focused on the mechanical elements, broke down the costs and what to expect, and really took you through the bootstrapping process. (Maybe these sites exist and I just haven't found them yet.)
- rdtwo 7y ago
  I keep bees in Seattle, I’d be happy to anwser questions. It’s not that hard but kind of pricy to start budget $600-1000. Some years you will get honey some years you won’t but so far I haven’t gotten crazy amounts as that’s where the skill comes in. Treat for mites twice a year and make nice with your neighbors for the inevitable times that half of the bees swarm and fly off into your neighbors tree. Also bee boxes are heavy so don’t have back problems
war1025 7y ago
Happened to listen to a podcast about bee keeping and colony collapse just this past weekend. Thought it was pretty interesting and worth a listen. https://www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/2019/caring-for-bees/ https://www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/2019/caring-for-bees/
- celias 7y ago
  99% Invisible did a podcast on bees recently https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-beeing/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-beeing/
Railsify 7y ago
This is great as long as they don't require a license fee or are engineered to have a limited life span thus requiring beekeepers to buy more every year from Monsanto.
topologistics 7y ago
The answer to colony collapse is medicinal mushrooms. https://beemushroomed.com/ https://beemushroomed.com/ Extracts from certain medicinal mushrooms have been shown to have surprising efficacy against the leading viruses responsible for colony collapse disorder. You can participate in the solution by purchasing and using a simple bee feeder in your own backyard. Thanks to Paul Stamets for figuring this out and providing the means for all of us to participate in the restoration of bee populations. Save the bees, secure the food supply, and all of us will benefit.
somesortofsystm 7y ago
I am fortunate to live in a country region where insects are quite thriving, from bees to butterflies to all the bugs in between .. it is late summer, and our garden is packed with sunflowers. Every morning for the last few weeks, my family has had breakfast and witnessed a number of extraordinary events: of 100 sunflowers in our immediate environment, only 1 had no bee. Then, there was a swarm of butterflies, which literally showed up as we sat down to our freshly picked garden treats, of about a bit too early in the morning, but nevertheless with heat from the sun waking us all up. We ate, the butterflies fluttered about, 30 or so of them, suddenly, as a flock .. A couple days ago I shook my outside garden shoe, as it is wise to do, before putting it on, and out fluttered a praying mantis. I amused myself with this immediately, until my toes touched the egg it had laid in there. Or perhaps it wasn't an egg, lets see.. I've also been blessed to have lived around the world, and seen things kind of disappear, with return visits, to parts in which I grew up myself. Such contrasts are jarring. There is a big point to be made and it is this: if we want to save the planet, its pretty easy to do it, you can get help from your plant friends: grow your garden. Tomorrow morning I will have another bug report, I'm quite sure, but its getting cooler now ..

62 points by vezycash 7y ago

ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago

The answer is to stop the overuse of pesticides.

tptacek 7y ago
Yeah. And Varroa destructor mites. We should definitely stop overusing those too.
- ropiwqefjnpoa 7y ago
  Varroa destructor mites are a scapegoat, an issue in some areas with some hives. Corporations like to point to this in an attempt to shift blame.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    They literally eradicated feral honeybees.
    - nemo 7y ago
      Thomas Seeley's written extensively on feral honeybees. According to him they are thriving, and he's done a whole lot of fieldwork looking into this topic. https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Bees-Untold-Story-Honey/dp/0691166765 https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Bees-Untold-Story-Honey/dp/0691...
      - tptacek 7y ago
        https://beesource.com/point-of-view/adrian-wenner/varroa-mite-spread-in-the-united-states/ https://beesource.com/point-of-view/adrian-wenner/varroa-mit...
        nemo 7y ago
        Weird. I'm not a beekeeper, nor a biologist, but Seeley's one of the top authorities on both - he picked up Karl von Frisch's work and extended it further translating bee language/communications. His accounts of site analyses across the country don't exactly agree with the claim of feral bees dying off. He does agree in a sense, but he's presented a lot of very compelling evidence that wild/feral bee colonies are evolving and adapting to survive Varroa mites through natural selection.
        tptacek 7y ago
        We don't have to agree completely; all that we have to agree on is that Varroa mites have in fact been a very big deal both to feral and controlled honey bee hives, and that they are not a smokescreen put up by pesticide companies.
        nemo 7y ago
        Varroa mites in the wild are a big deal. They are very troublesome with European honeybees, esp. those kept in Langstroth hives. In the wild, bees swarm regularly, and any time they swarm and form a new hive, the new hive not only rids itself of parasites but increases the genetic diversity that is needed to deal with pest resistance. The methods of modern beekeeping work diligently to prevent this. In the 20 years since the article you first linked to was written, more careful/extensive study of wild/feral bee populations has shown how they are better adapted to deal with this pest, which is a very important development in our knowledge of the issue. They aren't a smokescreen put up by pesticide companies, but they are a greater problem as a result of modern practices that limit natural behaviors and natural evolutionary responses that reduce the impact of the mites in wild and feral populations.
        tptacek 7y ago
        I've got no trouble believing any of that, though I'll observe that the honey bees don't "belong" in North America to begin with --- they're an invasive species.

rdtwo 7y ago

The site content is kind of weak, they had this bee strain for all of a year on how many hives? Not exactly convincing numbers

cameron_b 7y ago
I agree, I'd be interested in a followup in the second summer. How did they fare through the winter on how much honey? Were they interested in swarming, or how vigorously did swarm management / splits take place? And moreover ( assuming the queen was mated previously ) how did the real progeny workers do compared to the Italians?
- evandev 7y ago
  I highly recommend the project report of the Saskatraz honeybee project rather than this individual's observations: http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/review.htm http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/review.htm
- dwater 7y ago
  The original article includes a link at the bottom to a part 2 posted 6 months later that addresses many of your questions. https://whathappensonthehomestead.com/an-update-about-our-saskatraz-bees-theyre-doing-incredible/ https://whathappensonthehomestead.com/an-update-about-our-sa...

adultSwim 7y ago

native bees > honey bees

evandev 7y ago
With the large scale agriculture in America that native bees aren't well adapted for, we do need honeybees to pollinate the various plants. Especially if we want to reduce our consumption of beef and other animal products.

aritmo 7y ago

The article is indeed weak in detail and appears as a PR piece. It talks about a hybrid bee (Apis melifera) that has resistance to varroa mites. It does not explain how they achieve this resistance and just hints that maybe it is due to the longer legs of this hybrid. Or, they produce more propolis than other bees. While the article is titled about colony collapse, it talks about a hybrid that is somehow less susceptible to mites. Does not mention neonicotinoids, which mainly cause the colony collapse.

evandev 7y ago
This article is just a PR piece not for the type of bees, but this individual's blog. The research behind the bee is very sound in terms of varroa resistance.
- newsreview1 7y ago
  Looks like a subjective hobby farmer blog. Not meant to be an expert. I can appreciate the piece, but would rather see more research, and less anecdotal or subjective information.

aritmo 7y ago

Varroa mites are a big issue with bees. They weaken the hive and introduce other disease. The article content does not match the title. The title should have been about the answer to varroa mites, not colony collapse.

evandev 7y ago
As per the article: > Infestation of varroa mites and tracheal mites have resulted in the declining health and death of many honey bee colonies. It is also considered to be a factor in the increase of colony collapse disorder that’s plaguing many areas of the world.

evandev 7y ago

I highly recommend reading the Saskatraz bee project report which has a lot more information and research on the bees: http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/review.htm http://www.saskatraz.com/pages/review.htm

worldvoyageur 7y ago

My dad is a beekeeper and I've been with bees all my life. A bee colony is a wonderful, inspiring emergent organism. When you know the bees, you can optimize for any dimension among many. Depending on the needs around our farm, we'd optimize for honey production, for pollen, for pollination services, for bee or queen production among others. Now, my dad optimizes for joy. A bit of honey to give the grandkids, friends and neighbours. Pollination services for the berry farms (those farmers are his buddies) in that critical time when blossoms must be pollinated or there will be no berries, nukes (what we call fresh new bees with a queen, the nucleus 'nuke' of a colony) for other beekeepers that need more bees, teaching at the local community college. Sometimes, we go into the bees with no protective gear. If you know the bees, you can do that. There is a sense of calm/zen/awe you get when among the bees that is hard to describe. All this is to say, it is misleading to think of colony collapse as a problem. Rather, it is a choice some beekeepers increasingly make to optimize other things. Death rates under 10% are quite possible with a different set of choices. We get single digit death rates, even near zero, but getting there gives up a lot of other dimensions. Bee production itself is so effective that it often makes economic sense to, in effect, stress a colony to death and replace it with a fresh one, rather than give the colony the space or attention needed to make it through. The economics is clearer if you have dozens or hundreds of colonies. Then, you have to handle them en mass and accept higher losses as a result. If you are going to hit peak pollination time in Florida, then truck your colonies across the continent to catch the sweet pollination money from California, you are going to stress your colonies far beyond what they can handle and lose a lot as a result. But, the oranges and the almonds will be pollinated and what you make will more than cover the cost of buying fresh new colonies. Running the bees to burn through them is not a choice I'd make, but I understand the math even as I don't need the bees to support my family.

newsreview1 7y ago
Appreciate this point of view, but it isn't just about over-stress. Varroa mites are a real problem. As a hobby apiarist myself, the influx of varroa mites has wreaked havoc on my bee colonies. Having read much of what is being done at the University of Sasketchwan, I am excited about a varroa mite-resistant breed. http://www.saskatraz.com/articles/New/The%20Saskatraz%20hybrid%20project%202015%20ver0122F.pdf http://www.saskatraz.com/articles/New/The%20Saskatraz%20hybr...

kpgraham 7y ago

I am a beekeeper and I have not had a colony collapse since I started treating the varroa mites with oxalic acid solution. Colony collapse is a generic term for hive failure and not a specific disease. Varroa is the main reason why my hives failed. The oxalic acid seems to fix this. I treat them after I harvest the honey in the fall. The varroa infestation dies down and the bees do well. The crisis in beekeeping is largely a misrepresentation of the facts by the press. Bees are doing well and the count of total hives is increasing each year in the US. I am going to order some Saskatraz queens, but mainly because they sound like an interesting hack.

newsreview1 7y ago
I've read (and experienced with my Carnolians) that oxalic acid treatments can sometimes take more toll than the mites themselves. Any thoughts about this? Have you had any causalities with its use?
- kpgraham 7y ago
  Oxalic acid is not very toxic. I've read it slows down the bees for a few days, but I've not seen any impact on population. You get oxalic acid in a rhubarb pie and it is harmless. Bees get a very weak solution dribbled on the top of the frames for tens of thousands of bees. They don't get much at all. As far as pesticides, I am sure they harm bees, but CCD has pretty much gone since the aggressive treatment of varroa started. Russian bees are thought to have brought varroa with them. Before that there were pesticides and most were much more toxic including DDT but the bees were just fine.

tonyarkles 7y ago

It's always cool to see my province on HN for this or that. It seems that beekeeping has exploded in popularity around here in the last, say, decade or so. Driving around, there's a huge number of tents set up in canola and alfalfa fields to support colonies of Leafcutter Bees.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tvanantwerp 7y ago

I just spent two weeks in central Europe and was blown away by how many bees I saw. In the DC area, I might see one or two individual bees a week. But in one park in Prague, I saw several dozen buzzing among the flowers at once. And there were plenty more in every other location I visited, both urban and rural. This is just my anecdotal experience and it may mean nothing, but I was truly shocked by the differences in what I see.

cafard 7y ago
Plant milkweed and other plants they like, and you will see bees. I won't say that I've seen dozens at once in our front yard (in Washington, DC), but certainly a half dozen. And they visit our birdbath for water.

tehChromic76 7y ago

I ran two Saskatrqz colonies this year and one of my clients (I run a city-wide apiary network) was two more. We also capture around 50 'wild' swarms around town or year - some of these are from backyard hives but many are from well known, well established wild colonies living in trees or houses. In all cases the wild swarms outperformed Saskatrqz in terms of growth during the summer. But this is almost always the case that swarms outperform packages. We will do mite counts headed into fall and then will have a little bit of information. Colony loss from mites is over 50% yearly in town so it's #1 cause of death and a big concern for backyard keepers (in all the USA #1 cause of death is winter for backyard keepers, but here we don't have much winter). Varroa is #1 cause of death in industry as well. This is largely a human-made problem at this point. A local expert (UC Davis) told me that if industry quit treating for mites, 95% of hives would die which would be catastrophic for food. However the resulting stock would bounce back with strong Varroa resistance. I understand that in South Africa they undertook a practical application of the let nature run her course strategy and it worked. However in the USA at the heart of the big commercial AG industry, it's all treatment, all the time. That mentality bleeds into the backyard culture - the extension program which trains backyard beekeepers statewide teaches that if you don't treat for Varroa then you are a nuisance - the model says that when a hive dies from Varroa it's infected bees don't so die, they abandon colony and move into nearby colonies. I attended a conference once where they compared an untreated have to an atom bomb - the speaker had a huge screen behind him and there was an atom bomb video on loop. After his presentation they were giving away mite treatment strips from a major brand - this was an academic speaker, not an industry rep. The trouble with treating heavily for mites follow similar models which are well documented and fail: the rather pest gets resistance, the host gets weaker. Here in an small city in AG land where we are surrounded by commercial keepers, we have zero chance of developing local mite resistance. Our good survivor queens mate with drones from treated colonies where the is no selective pressure on bees to grow tolerance and higenic behavior. Likewise those commercial drones are a death sentence for wild bees. Even so, we continue to have colonies that persist year after year, generation after generation in town, and although most colonies for each year we end up with as many swarms as lost colonies, so break even. Many of my colonies across town count fewer mites than they did a few years ago. I think that in spite of industry, the small pocket of organic keeping going on here in town is having an event. I think as well industry is buying hiegenic queens. That's all speculation, although more informed than average. Mite resistant queens have been on the market for a decade - Russians, Carniolans, even a breed of blond Italian that was billed as varroa resistant was being sold in this neck of the woods. I tried all of them and lost them all to mites eventually. Before these breeds because available a local professor and breeder had developed an all black bee with reported excellent resistance. Saskatraz are only the lastest and the greatest. Maybe they will be the magic bullet. What's important is that the hiegenic genes remain in the population. To that end marketing like this when it's backed up by evidence is a positive thing. However what remains the most effective response to varroa is to do little and let nature run her course: let it bee.

Pfhreak 7y ago

Maybe some of the beekeepers in this thread can help me understand this. I live in the PNW, I've got a garden that I love to tend, and I make sure that I've always got something flowering. I've been really curious about maintaining a beehive for honey (and as an interesting project), but the amount of conflicting information online about raising bees in a suburban environment is unreal. Everything from, "You are doomed and also the honey will poison you because there's a rhododendron within 10 miles" to "Everyone should raise honeybees in their backyard! Totally maintenance free infinite honey!" A lot of the sites are super, for lack of a better term, "woo-woo". I wish there were more sites that focused on the mechanical elements, broke down the costs and what to expect, and really took you through the bootstrapping process. (Maybe these sites exist and I just haven't found them yet.)

rdtwo 7y ago
I keep bees in Seattle, I’d be happy to anwser questions. It’s not that hard but kind of pricy to start budget $600-1000. Some years you will get honey some years you won’t but so far I haven’t gotten crazy amounts as that’s where the skill comes in. Treat for mites twice a year and make nice with your neighbors for the inevitable times that half of the bees swarm and fly off into your neighbors tree. Also bee boxes are heavy so don’t have back problems

war1025 7y ago

Happened to listen to a podcast about bee keeping and colony collapse just this past weekend. Thought it was pretty interesting and worth a listen. https://www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/2019/caring-for-bees/ https://www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/2019/caring-for-bees/

celias 7y ago
99% Invisible did a podcast on bees recently https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-beeing/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-beeing/

Railsify 7y ago

This is great as long as they don't require a license fee or are engineered to have a limited life span thus requiring beekeepers to buy more every year from Monsanto.

topologistics 7y ago

The answer to colony collapse is medicinal mushrooms. https://beemushroomed.com/ https://beemushroomed.com/ Extracts from certain medicinal mushrooms have been shown to have surprising efficacy against the leading viruses responsible for colony collapse disorder. You can participate in the solution by purchasing and using a simple bee feeder in your own backyard. Thanks to Paul Stamets for figuring this out and providing the means for all of us to participate in the restoration of bee populations. Save the bees, secure the food supply, and all of us will benefit.

somesortofsystm 7y ago

I am fortunate to live in a country region where insects are quite thriving, from bees to butterflies to all the bugs in between .. it is late summer, and our garden is packed with sunflowers. Every morning for the last few weeks, my family has had breakfast and witnessed a number of extraordinary events: of 100 sunflowers in our immediate environment, only 1 had no bee. Then, there was a swarm of butterflies, which literally showed up as we sat down to our freshly picked garden treats, of about a bit too early in the morning, but nevertheless with heat from the sun waking us all up. We ate, the butterflies fluttered about, 30 or so of them, suddenly, as a flock .. A couple days ago I shook my outside garden shoe, as it is wise to do, before putting it on, and out fluttered a praying mantis. I amused myself with this immediately, until my toes touched the egg it had laid in there. Or perhaps it wasn't an egg, lets see.. I've also been blessed to have lived around the world, and seen things kind of disappear, with return visits, to parts in which I grew up myself. Such contrasts are jarring. There is a big point to be made and it is this: if we want to save the planet, its pretty easy to do it, you can get help from your plant friends: grow your garden. Tomorrow morning I will have another bug report, I'm quite sure, but its getting cooler now ..