9 ms·

Honey bees, Varroa mites and unintended consequences

40 points by axiomdata316 5y ago

BatFastard 5y ago
https://archive.md/513WP https://archive.md/513WP
Ozzie_osman 5y ago
> Though honey bees are not, contrary to popular mythology, declining in numbers around the world, Varroa mites do thus cause serious trouble for apiarists, particularly in the West. Is this true? First time I'm reading this (as opposed to the opposite, that honeybee populations are collapsing).
- tptacek 5y ago
  Honey bee populations in America are certainly taking a hit, but honey bees are invasive to North America, and feral honey bees all died out in the 1980s, so any American honey bee you'd be talking about is livestock, not wildlife.
  - WaitWaitWha 5y ago
    The wild hives that I see along the Appalachian trail would disagree of their demise.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      Huh, it turns out that there probably are feral colonies in Appalachia (they were thought to be extinct nationwide) --- specifically because those colonies are Varroa-resistant. Super interesting.
      - pedrocr 5y ago
        Great video on those bees and how they've adapted to varroa: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T7CB8E7jKBc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T7CB8E7jKBc They had a ~90% bottleneck when varroa arrived and after adapting are now at full strength again.
        sswaner 5y ago
        My first thought on clicking that link: “No way I am watching a 1.5 hour video on bees”. 1.5 hours later - absolutely fascinated. Thanks for sharing.
  - wayne31r 5y ago
    Honey bees are non-native in North America but definitely not invasive. If they were invasive, then the feral population would not be dying out. Humans, on the other hand, could definitely be considered invasive.
- dflock 5y ago
  All insect populations are in drastic decline everywhere. Everywhere we have records and have compared them to recent counts, they are in the region of 50% or more down since the 70's. Bee's are slightly more complex because we keep large numbers of certain bee species as livestock, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that wild bee's are somehow exempt from the general collapse of insect life.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    > All insect populations are in drastic decline everywhere. bees are indeed more complex, and in some places the populations are increasing due to high stocking of hives. https://www.airborne.co.nz/pages/bee-keeping-statistics-new-zealand https://www.airborne.co.nz/pages/bee-keeping-statistics-new-...
  - drewm1980 5y ago
    Native bee species are indeed in decline, and domesticated bees certainly are not helping. At best they're competition. Ran into that while deciding whether or not to keep eating honey after I went vegan. Biased source: https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/is-honey-vegan-the-not-so-sweet-truth/ https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/is-honey-vegan-the... Trace their sources, and you end up on EU publications: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/species/redlist/downloads/European_bees.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/species... And the IUCN red list https://www.iucnredlist.org/ https://www.iucnredlist.org/ About 1/10 of the EU's bee species are red listed.
- jonas21 5y ago
  Yes, the global honey bee population has been growing steadily for a long time. This is due to increasing demand for honey and pollination services. In the US, it's been pretty stable even after colony collapse disorder appeared here in the mid-2000s. The rate at which individual colonies collapse has increased, but beekeepers have responded by creating more colonies to replace them. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/88117/err-246.pdf https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/88117/err-246....
- lostlogin 5y ago
  In New Zealand the numbers are high enough that it is a problem (disease, dealing honey crop etc). https://www.airborne.co.nz/pages/bee-keeping-statistics-new-zealand https://www.airborne.co.nz/pages/bee-keeping-statistics-new-...
NoNotTheDuo 5y ago
I had not considered that selective breeding for less propolis producing bees may be a reason why traditionally managed colonies produce less propolis. It is an interesting thought experiment to ponder. However, one thing that the article didn’t mention is that most managed hives, with removable frames, are made with wood that has been planed/sanded smooth on both sides. This makes everything uniform and easy to paint the outside of the boxes, but also limits where bees can/need to place propolis. I have seen (can’t find sources at the moment) some beekeepers recommending roughing up the inside walls of the boxes - either with low grit sandpaper or a wire brush - so as to create a more ‘natural’ hive and thus induce the bees to coat the inside of the hive with propolis like they would do in a tree hollow.
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago
  Insides of hives and frames are not painted.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    This is correct, and frames are not sanded or planed. Propolis is quite valuable and is quite easily harvested. I'm not aware of any beekeepers that try to prevent it.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      The above comment doesn’t say that beekeepers would try to prevent propolis, just that it would be a side-effect of better finish related to other purposes. And wooden frames are definitely sanded.
      - lostlogin 5y ago
        > And wooden frames are definitely sanded. I'm really sure mine aren't, they are just straight off the machine - they were just cut. Same for the boxes. They cost US$0.79 each, so the process must be pretty streamlined. If they were sanded is was super half arsed. Could the process vary from place to place? I'm in New Zealand. Edit: the vendor seems to say they aren’t sanded. “The fine toothed saws and cutters we use are so clean cutting you'd swear that every piece has been sanded smooth.” https://www.ceracell.co.nz/3-4d-mahurangi-frame-33mm-flatpack/ https://www.ceracell.co.nz/3-4d-mahurangi-frame-33mm-flatpac...
lostlogin 5y ago
Interesting. Some nitpicks and comment. > Bees use the hexagonal cells of their waxy combs for two jobs: storing honey and raising youngsters. And storing pollen, and curing nectar. > They began by analysing honeycombs that had been prepared by queens as nurseries. Comb is prepared by workers, not the queen. > This is that beekeepers themselves have also, albeit unwittingly, helped the mites to multiply. This isn't a new problem. Diseases such as American Foulbrood are spread by bad beekeeping and could be eradicated if beekeepers did better. > Some larvae are thus killed outright. Survivors are weakened, making them vulnerable to infections. And that vulnerability is enhanced by open wounds left by the parasites’ feeding, which are exploited by pathogens carried by the mites. These are known to include deformed-wing virus and acute-bee-paralysis virus. It's very depressing to see bees with curled up wings stumbling across the ground in the morning. Bees trying to shake off visible varroa and patchy brood cells with half open cells and starved, dead bees hanging out. It's basically always varroa treatment time, with brief spells where you collect honey. Varroa are awful.
sllabres 5y ago
~ 10 years old, and only slightly related, but interesting documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_than_Honey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_than_Honey
Jedd 5y ago
We don't have Varroa destructor in Australia... yet. We know we'll get it, probably within the next decade, and it will be awful. SHB was a huge wake up call here, about fifteen years ago. What we really need are terminator genes / CRISPR to become more culturally acceptable - we could sort this out within a few years.
pedrocr 5y ago
There is a lot of research on this. Varroa treatments have eliminated the selection pressure but there are wild bees that have adapted. More propolis is one adaptation but there are also other genetic traits that help control it (e.g., brood recapping behavior) and other beekeeping practices that help the varroa (e.g., keeping hives next to each other). Trying to focus on a single thing as the miracle cure for varroa doesn't work. Most of this has been known for a while now: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T7CB8E7jKBc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T7CB8E7jKBc

40 points by axiomdata316 5y ago

https://archive.md/513WP https://archive.md/513WP

> Though honey bees are not, contrary to popular mythology, declining in numbers around the world, Varroa mites do thus cause serious trouble for apiarists, particularly in the West. Is this true? First time I'm reading this (as opposed to the opposite, that honeybee populations are collapsing).

tptacek 5y ago
Honey bee populations in America are certainly taking a hit, but honey bees are invasive to North America, and feral honey bees all died out in the 1980s, so any American honey bee you'd be talking about is livestock, not wildlife.
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago
  The wild hives that I see along the Appalachian trail would disagree of their demise.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    Huh, it turns out that there probably are feral colonies in Appalachia (they were thought to be extinct nationwide) --- specifically because those colonies are Varroa-resistant. Super interesting.
    - pedrocr 5y ago
      Great video on those bees and how they've adapted to varroa: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T7CB8E7jKBc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T7CB8E7jKBc They had a ~90% bottleneck when varroa arrived and after adapting are now at full strength again.
      - sswaner 5y ago
        My first thought on clicking that link: “No way I am watching a 1.5 hour video on bees”. 1.5 hours later - absolutely fascinated. Thanks for sharing.
- wayne31r 5y ago
  Honey bees are non-native in North America but definitely not invasive. If they were invasive, then the feral population would not be dying out. Humans, on the other hand, could definitely be considered invasive.
dflock 5y ago
All insect populations are in drastic decline everywhere. Everywhere we have records and have compared them to recent counts, they are in the region of 50% or more down since the 70's. Bee's are slightly more complex because we keep large numbers of certain bee species as livestock, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that wild bee's are somehow exempt from the general collapse of insect life.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > All insect populations are in drastic decline everywhere. bees are indeed more complex, and in some places the populations are increasing due to high stocking of hives. https://www.airborne.co.nz/pages/bee-keeping-statistics-new-zealand https://www.airborne.co.nz/pages/bee-keeping-statistics-new-...
- drewm1980 5y ago
  Native bee species are indeed in decline, and domesticated bees certainly are not helping. At best they're competition. Ran into that while deciding whether or not to keep eating honey after I went vegan. Biased source: https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/is-honey-vegan-the-not-so-sweet-truth/ https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/is-honey-vegan-the... Trace their sources, and you end up on EU publications: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/species/redlist/downloads/European_bees.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/species... And the IUCN red list https://www.iucnredlist.org/ https://www.iucnredlist.org/ About 1/10 of the EU's bee species are red listed.
jonas21 5y ago
Yes, the global honey bee population has been growing steadily for a long time. This is due to increasing demand for honey and pollination services. In the US, it's been pretty stable even after colony collapse disorder appeared here in the mid-2000s. The rate at which individual colonies collapse has increased, but beekeepers have responded by creating more colonies to replace them. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/88117/err-246.pdf https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/88117/err-246....
lostlogin 5y ago
In New Zealand the numbers are high enough that it is a problem (disease, dealing honey crop etc). https://www.airborne.co.nz/pages/bee-keeping-statistics-new-zealand https://www.airborne.co.nz/pages/bee-keeping-statistics-new-...

NoNotTheDuo 5y ago

I had not considered that selective breeding for less propolis producing bees may be a reason why traditionally managed colonies produce less propolis. It is an interesting thought experiment to ponder. However, one thing that the article didn’t mention is that most managed hives, with removable frames, are made with wood that has been planed/sanded smooth on both sides. This makes everything uniform and easy to paint the outside of the boxes, but also limits where bees can/need to place propolis. I have seen (can’t find sources at the moment) some beekeepers recommending roughing up the inside walls of the boxes - either with low grit sandpaper or a wire brush - so as to create a more ‘natural’ hive and thus induce the bees to coat the inside of the hive with propolis like they would do in a tree hollow.

WaitWaitWha 5y ago
Insides of hives and frames are not painted.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  This is correct, and frames are not sanded or planed. Propolis is quite valuable and is quite easily harvested. I'm not aware of any beekeepers that try to prevent it.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    The above comment doesn’t say that beekeepers would try to prevent propolis, just that it would be a side-effect of better finish related to other purposes. And wooden frames are definitely sanded.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      > And wooden frames are definitely sanded. I'm really sure mine aren't, they are just straight off the machine - they were just cut. Same for the boxes. They cost US$0.79 each, so the process must be pretty streamlined. If they were sanded is was super half arsed. Could the process vary from place to place? I'm in New Zealand. Edit: the vendor seems to say they aren’t sanded. “The fine toothed saws and cutters we use are so clean cutting you'd swear that every piece has been sanded smooth.” https://www.ceracell.co.nz/3-4d-mahurangi-frame-33mm-flatpack/ https://www.ceracell.co.nz/3-4d-mahurangi-frame-33mm-flatpac...

lostlogin 5y ago

Interesting. Some nitpicks and comment. > Bees use the hexagonal cells of their waxy combs for two jobs: storing honey and raising youngsters. And storing pollen, and curing nectar. > They began by analysing honeycombs that had been prepared by queens as nurseries. Comb is prepared by workers, not the queen. > This is that beekeepers themselves have also, albeit unwittingly, helped the mites to multiply. This isn't a new problem. Diseases such as American Foulbrood are spread by bad beekeeping and could be eradicated if beekeepers did better. > Some larvae are thus killed outright. Survivors are weakened, making them vulnerable to infections. And that vulnerability is enhanced by open wounds left by the parasites’ feeding, which are exploited by pathogens carried by the mites. These are known to include deformed-wing virus and acute-bee-paralysis virus. It's very depressing to see bees with curled up wings stumbling across the ground in the morning. Bees trying to shake off visible varroa and patchy brood cells with half open cells and starved, dead bees hanging out. It's basically always varroa treatment time, with brief spells where you collect honey. Varroa are awful.

sllabres 5y ago

~ 10 years old, and only slightly related, but interesting documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_than_Honey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_than_Honey

Jedd 5y ago

We don't have Varroa destructor in Australia... yet. We know we'll get it, probably within the next decade, and it will be awful. SHB was a huge wake up call here, about fifteen years ago. What we really need are terminator genes / CRISPR to become more culturally acceptable - we could sort this out within a few years.

pedrocr 5y ago

There is a lot of research on this. Varroa treatments have eliminated the selection pressure but there are wild bees that have adapted. More propolis is one adaptation but there are also other genetic traits that help control it (e.g., brood recapping behavior) and other beekeeping practices that help the varroa (e.g., keeping hives next to each other). Trying to focus on a single thing as the miracle cure for varroa doesn't work. Most of this has been known for a while now: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T7CB8E7jKBc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T7CB8E7jKBc