Monday, November 28, 2011
Identifying and Treating Varroa
Three things I found interesting about this video on identyifing and treating varroa was that varroa mites are the number one killer of honey bees on the planet. Also, they live on the outside of the honey bee and they're a natural parasite from an asian honey bee and are now found in most countries around the world. Two things I will look for next time I am in the apiary is to look for varroa mites and see if you can identify if a bee has mites by it's activity. One question I have is how do you kill of mites?
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There are all sorts of harsh chemicals that will kill mites, but since the mites are actually fairly closely related to the bees genetically, anything that kills them also harms the bees. One method that is getting some attention now is to pour baking sugar on the bees which makes them groom each other and knocks off the mites. They say it helps, although the older beekeepers I talk to still swear by the more powerful pesticides.
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