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Author Topic: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies  (Read 2996 times)

Offline gabsgrammy54

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Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« on: April 08, 2018, 04:07:10 pm »
Have their been any studies on mite loads on kept bees versus wild colonies? If kept colonies are mite checked and treated, do they have less mites since wild bees can?t be monitored or treated unless someone captures the swarm. So I?m wondering if newly caught bees are checked for mite loads to compare with hive kept bees?

Offline gww

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2018, 05:44:22 pm »
Do a google search of tom seeley or the usda.  A simple search term of treatment free bees will probly bring some up.  There is an island where kept bees are with out treatment that had mite loads that they were living with as high as 40 percent.  It is out there if you look.  Most of the places they have studied stable populations will have some kind of mite info.
Good luck
gww

Offline gabsgrammy54

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2018, 09:32:35 pm »
Thanks

Offline beepro

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2018, 02:32:43 am »
Yes, there is study on this subject before.
You just cannot compare the treated hives and the wild colonies.  Treated hives will have less mites, of course, because beekeepers are monitoring the mites in their hives.  A wild colony will have a higher mite load but they know how to deal with it.  If not they cannot survive when overwhelmed with mites.  They might even have better mite resistance than the treated hives enabling them to survive in the wild.  Left alone a treated hive will die within 2 season but a wild hive can still be alive.  If a wild hive cannot deal with the mites then they too will perish as well. 

Online Acebird

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #4 on: April 19, 2018, 09:15:27 am »
The only way to take a sample of a feral hive is to cut the hive apart.  That would only give you one sample in time.  A big part in feral hives surviving is small hives and swarming.  This is not desirable for honey production.
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Online Michael Bush

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #5 on: April 19, 2018, 09:23:44 am »
> Treated hives will have less mites, of course, because beekeepers are monitoring the mites in their hives.  A wild colony will have a higher mite load

This is not consistent with my experience.
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #6 on: April 20, 2018, 12:31:41 am »
The only way to take a sample of a feral hive is to cut the hive apart.  That would only give you one sample in time.  A big part in feral hives surviving is small hives and swarming.  This is not desirable for honey production.
They also survive because the build smaller cells that create smaller bees and smaller bees develop faster than the large cell bees in domestic boxes.
Jim
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Online Acebird

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #7 on: April 20, 2018, 08:53:39 am »
It makes sense Jim but I have no experience with small cell.  When I have let the bees build natural comb the size is all over the place.  This could be because this was done in the supers and not in the brood nest.  Your bees did not appear to me to be smaller then mine.
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #8 on: April 20, 2018, 09:22:31 pm »
Brian,
My bees are usually half large and half small. I have natural drawn comb from my swarm traps and large cell on plasticell.
Jim
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Offline beepro

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2018, 03:18:50 am »
I started with natural size cells about half and half in a 5 frame nuc hive.  Then gradually remove the
larger cell frames and replace them with the small cell frames.   Over time the bees will regress to the
small cell bees.  It is very interesting to see them turn to smaller bees after a 2 month bee cycles.  If I want to
see larger bees again then I would gradually put in the natural size frames.    My unconfirmed theory is that during the
winter the large bees can heat up the cluster better than the small size bees.   During the summer time the small cell bees can
keep the mites population down a bit.   So before the winter sets in I can use some natural size cell frames too.  Maybe half and half again.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2018, 07:31:37 am »
I just purchased 50 small cell, 4.9, wax foundation sheets. I plan on adding these to my hives, observation hive first, to help reduce the size of my bees.
By the way Beepro, the normal size foundation are not the ?natural? size of our bees. When it was first developed, it was thought that larger bees could carry  more nectar. They kept pushing the size of the bees until the bees became too large to function properly  and then backed off to the size they are today. The problem is that larger bees take longer to develop which helps the mites produce more offspring.
Jim
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Offline moebees

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Re: Compare Varroa mite loads in wild and hived colonies
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2018, 12:09:15 pm »
I just purchased 50 small cell, 4.9, wax foundation sheets. I plan on adding these to my hives, observation hive first, to help reduce the size of my bees.

Jim
If you have large bees now they are liable to rework the wax foundation.  The only way to regress in one step is to use plastic 4.9.
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