Jim wrote:Michael Bush has been keeping bees for a very long time. When varroa hit, like everyone else he started treating with all of the poison and chemicals. He then decided to let the bees figure it out. He has not been treating his bees for, I think, over ten years now. He has done a few things to help the bees out.
He shaved his brood frames down by an eighth of an inch and puts 11 frames in a 10 foot and box. This allows each bee in the brood area to do the work of two bees. The other thing he does is use fountain less frames to allow the bees to make smaller bees to allow them to hatch out a day or two earlier. This reduces the number of mites that can mature to adulthood. Mite originally developed on apis Cerana drone brood only. Apis Cerana is a smaller bee that hatches sooner than our bees. Loosing a few drone brood is not a problem. The foundation in our hives was designed to make larger bees, to bee able to carry more nectar. Larger bees take more time to develop.
Maybe Michael will provide more information.
I think when Varroa hit Italy, may have been another country, they decided to not treat their bees. The first couple of years they lost a large percentage of their hives. Then the bees changed and survived with the mites.
Jim Altmiller
Thanks Jim,
Michael keeps bees in Nehawka, NE, so I understand.Looking at Google I can see that he has a genuine winter , even snow.I have never been to Nehawka but I have been close and it was freezing.To get an idea where my bees are, look for the climate for Nambour, Qld, our closest weather station - no snow, no winter to speak of.To get an even better idea look for Maroochydore.We have a genuine Subtropical climate and here is the problem - we can take honey off any time of the year. Along the coast Mangroves and TeaTree flower in winter . We are also dealing with SHB. The combination of varroa and SHB sounds fantastic - give us Africanised bees and we have the perfect storm.16C as a day time temperature is seen as cold.I can find brood any time of the year - no brood break.I'm a very, very small beekeeper with about 50 hives and increasing to about 100 during Spring /summer. We produce about 4t of honey in a decent year and about 50 nuc's for sale.Beekeeping is just one of my hobbies.Age has slowed me down..Bursitis in both shoulders, arthritic hand, a bad back.I'm busy with other activities..a large garden, orchard, cattle, writing a gardening newsletter, Plasma donation every two weeks, volunteering in Cambodia. Not forgetting family, children and grandchildren. Bottom line is, I may be better off selling the gear and hives while I can.
Michaels method is innovative and works for him. I doubt that it would work in a warm climate with no brood break and honey all year round.Add to this that we can't store used beegear in any practical way due to the dear wax moth. His area has not been affected by climate change, our part of the world has. And many other regions: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-07/brazil-greece-turkey-us-battle-climate-related-disasters/102825092Or maybe this is more convincing: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-13/climate-scientists-issue-warning-over-antarctic-sea-ice-levels/102849334
or this:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-26/antarctic-winter-sea-ice-hits-extreme-record-low/102903614
or this:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-05/nsw-new-record-warm-summer-september/102938932
WE need to find our way through the mess which is varroa.Michael who is obviously an experienced beekeeper ( he has thousands of hits, not sure if this is a measure of expertise, Kath has heaps of visits and I don't think she keeps even a handful of bees?) has found a successful; way to keep bees - good to see.I would like to see some published data for his method: number of losses over winter, honey yield and a comparison with "normal" hives. This is the way to learn, assess and move forward.
There was an interesting article in one of the two US beekeeping magazines I subscribe to about beekeeping in Cuba. I have to find the article again as the climate is similar and I seem to remember that Cuban beekeepers are not using chemicals.Doing my research on varroa and Googling " varroa in the subtropics" or " varroa in warm climates" - very little of use turns up.
I hope that Australia does not follow the US example as described by Charles Linder ( in ABJ)
The value of the honey crop in the US is about $ 371million https://www.statista.com/statistics/191993/value-of-honey-production-in-the-us/The value of pollination services keeps increasing and in the last season has past $ 200/hive for Almonds. ( Bee Culture)The return for pollination services has now exceeded the value of honey. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2018/july/driven-by-almonds-pollination-services-now-exceed-honey-as-a-source-of-beekeeper-revenue/
The value of pollination to the ag industry is huge file:///C:/Users/max/Downloads/ValueofHoneyBeesasPollinators-2000Report.pdf
In 2022, for the first time, the US has imported more food than it has exported.I wonder if this has any connection with varroa?Charles writes ( ABJ) that the honey crop as the portion of income " is typically less than 10%"
It is very likely that Australia will follow these trends - although with Coal, gas and Iron ore being some of our major exports the overall picture for exports will probably not change much.We do export crops which do need a pollinator ( Avo, Mangos and other fruits as well as dairy produce.
To summarise:- we have no brood break- some of our best flows are in winter- Wax moths are a huge issue - storage of used gear is near impossible- Chemicals used around the world are not ( yet) permitted in Australia
