Contents

Apiary Update
Jenter Queen Rearing at the Association Apiary
John Furzey Queens
Recycling Jars
Free to a Good Home
Bee Disease Day
Apiary Tours
Handling Queens
Apiary Tour Hosts
Apiary Layout
Extractor for Sale
Apistan Resistance in Florida
Killer Drones
Queen Introduction
Apidea Mini-Nucs
FGMO Update
Recipe

Thanks to Swedish Beekeeper
P-O Gustafsson
for allowing me to use one of his superb photographs. Visit his website:
www.algonet.se/~beeman/

Apiary Update

Spring inspections had to wait until May because of the poor weather in April. Despite nearby oilseed rape, the two colonies at Breach Farm were disappointing. Both looked healthy but neither was very strong. That was over three weeks ago and I have been unable to inspect them again yet. That may form part of 6th June's Apiary Meeting.

For the Apiary Meeting on 2nd May, we inspected the colony at St. John's Copse that we had previously chosen as the breeder for our Queen rearing programme. It was strong, healthy and well-behaved, with brood in all stages and no Queen cells. We had planned to mark the Queen in readiness for Queen rearing. Twice we found her and twice she evaded us, so we resolved to return. She was a runner and but for her size and the condition of the colony she could have been a virgin.

On 16th May I inspected the colony alone to check for swarming. Sure enough, there were Queen cells. I shook the bees from the frames and destroyed the cells, having first satisfied myself that there were eggs and young larvae present. I did not see the Queen.

On 19th May Norman, June and John Cain found and marked the Queen. Again, she proved a real handful. At the first of our queen rearing meetings, we caught, clipped and confined her in the lower box. At the second Queen rearing meeting, on 27th May, there were no eggs or young larvae. Ominously, we saw a single hatched Queen cell near the centre of a frame. I don't know how I could have missed it during my earlier inspection, particularly as I had found some in awkward corners. Could the Queen that we had marked actually have been a newly emerged virgin? Well, she could have, although the colony looked too strong numerically to have swarmed and when we marked her, she looked too big to be a virgin. Could it have been a coincidental supercedure? This may remain one of life's unsolved mysteries.

So, the Queen rearing programme has taken a bit of a knock and is delayed a week while we devise a recovery method. Read the final instalment of this saga in the next newsletter, or better still, attend the meetings and join the fun.

Beulah Cullen, the Regional Bee Inspector, is to run a disease recognition training day on Saturday, 4th July. At the Bothy in the morning there will be slides, microscopy and the examination of frames of brood infected by American and European Foulbrood. In the afternoon we will examine the colonies in St. John's Copse, for disease.

Beulah's training days are always popular. To ensure that everyone has a go, there will be a maximum of ten participants. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested.

The astute among you will have noticed that this coincides with a scheduled Apiary Meeting. If you would normally have attended the Apiary Meeting, why not make a day of it and enroll for the training? The normal Apiary Meeting is cancelled, although you are welcome to inspect the Association's bees at some other time by arrangement with me. Dave Purchase, Apiary Manager  

Jenter Queen Rearing at the Association Apiary

Norman Hughes

They say that all life is on a learning curve and this has certainly been the case with our recent attempts in the Association apiary.

Of course, the first requirement for any method of Queen rearing is a laying Queen and when at the outset, we found our Queen was not laying, we opted, in true Dunkirk spirit, to continue in the hope that she would catch us up later!

Our Queen had proved difficult even before the start of the programme, when we attempted to catch and mark her to make life a little easier. No eggs could be seen and we debated if she was a virgin or had simply gone off lay in readiness for swarming.

We opted to continue, if only for the experience, and on Monday 25th May a goodly number attended the apiary for the first stage of setting up the hive with two brood boxes separated by a Queen excluder and the outer floor frame for use in isolating the two boxes at a later stage. Again, no eggs were seen but the Queen was caught and this time she was clipped.

As per programme, we again met at 7.00 pm on the following Wednesday 27th May when we were scheduled to confine the laying Queen within the Jenter cage. Again, no eggs were seen but our Queen was still there and, as though to cock a snook, she demonstrated her ability to fly! We then decided to delay the programme for one week to give time for a rethink.

Once again, John Furzey came to the rescue in providing a replacement Queen and on Tuesday 2nd June saw June and I at the apiary attempting to find and replace our Queen. Alas, not only could we see no eggs but even our Queen had now gone missing! With any luck our flightless Queen may have flown away and failed to return. We pondered if she had found her way into the top box but we knew that Dave Purchase had gone through the whole colony with this in mind only the day before and the bees were getting just a little fed up. The general demeanor of the bees together with the "roar" emanating from deep within the hive led us to the view that we had little to lose and we introduced the new Queen using the caged method and closed up the hive.

Some 32 hours later, as scheduled, we again met in the apiary to continue where we had left off a week previous. However, on retrieving the Queen cage it was found that no attempt had been made to release her and she lay dead in the cage. The mystery deepens! Still no eggs and no sign of a Queen, what next? Much debate ensued and, in line with most committees, since an apiary meeting was scheduled for the following Saturday afternoon, we decided to do nothing until then.

Saturday 6th June, 14.30 hours the gathering gathered once more to inspect the hive, still no eggs or Queen in the lower box but, what the heck, let's go through the upper box. Wonder of wonders! Joy of joys! There she is. She has grown considerably and she is laying! Eagerly she is swept up and inserted into the Jenter cage and placed in the lower box, we might yet get back on schedule.

Its sixteen hours later, 7.00 am the following morning, Sunday 7th June, six stalwarts have met at the apiary. Gordon was there even earlier to cut the grass in readiness for our arrival! Has she laid? Are we back in business?.

Shoulders slump, jaws hang low and Ron's feelings are similar to those he felt 54 years previous as he viewed the Normandy beachhead. Not a single egg!

This saga will continue, we are not finished yet. We are not sure as to what we will do next but be sure it will be reported in the next edition of The Basingstoke Beekeeper. N.P.H. Stop Press. We finally have 17 cells raised. Seven have already gone to new homes, one will stay Nine need homes! Call Norman 464280}  

Recycling Jars

The Sheilah Way

Sheilah Openshaw

As a child in the 1960s I would supplement my pocket money by walking around building sites in the evenings with my doll's pram collecting pop bottles. I could, in summer, make 1.00 pound per evening at a time when the average wage was 20 pounds per week. In those days when you bought a bottle of pop you paid a deposit of 3d (there were 240 of those in 1 pound) on each bottle. Of course, you never got your money back as you always bought another bottle.

Following this principle I have an arrangement with our local scouts that I pay them for all the honey jars they collect. They have just delivered 150 of them and it is interesting to see where people buy their honey.

Happily the majority are unknown as these people wash and remove the labels thus saving me a job. Sadly only two were my own produce, but I like to think my customers remove the labels for me. Although the supermarket accounts for a large percentage, people seem to be buying the "speciality" honey. This is a market we should be looking for as we can't compete with the bog standard stuff (nor would we want to) and our honey is, of course, superior to anything of theirs. The local producers seem to have high sales figures in this area as do Traidcraft, although surprisingly few "tourist" jars come back.

I realise that these are unscientific results, but if I did not collect these jars they would be put in bottle banks or wheely bins. If any of the suppliers had foul brood then there is a possibility that my bees would scavenge and bring it back to my hives, at least I know that these jars are thoroughly washed.

Oh! Does anyone know what to do with 150 used lids?  

Apiary Tours

The National Bee Unit encourages beekeeping associations to organise periodic Apiary Tours (also known as safaries), under the guidance of the local Bee Inspector.

A full or half-day itinerary of visits to members apiaries is arranged. The Bee Inspector will visit each one to undertake an inspection for Foulbrood (and bad cases of Varroa). The difference between a routine inspection by the Bee Inspector and an Apiary Tour is that members of the local association are invited to attend in order to improve their knowledge of bee diseases generally and to gain a better understanding of the statutory bee health programme.

I guide several Apiary Tours each year in Hampshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire. I am keen to arrange one for our association.

Incidentally, my objective is different from that of Beulah's Training Day referred to in Apiary Update. Mine is education (to increase awareness and understanding) and Beulah's is training (to equip a nucleus of association members with sufficient knowledge to be able to provide other members with second opinions). The purpose of both is to enable associations to become more self-reliant in an age of fewer statutory bee inspectors. Of course, I and other inspectors can, and should, always be called upon in cases of doubt.

I welcome offers from members to include their apiaries in an Apiary Tour on the understanding that other members of the Association will be present. It would be necessary for me to visit some of you anyway this year because of AFB and EFB in the Basingstoke area, particularly those of you to the east of the town.

A visit does not mean that I will find Foulbrood, indeed the odds are against it! It is much more likely to give you greater peace of mind and hopefully a better understanding of brood diseases.

I have set aside Saturday, 18th July, for an Apiary Tour. If you are willing to provide a service to your fellow members by offering your apiary, please phone me as soon as possible on 781288. If it all sounds rather serious, let me assure you that it will also be pleasurable (I speak from experience)!

If you are unable to offer your apiary, or do not have bees, but would like to join the Tour, please contact me so that I can give you the itinerary as soon as it is available.

We shall meet at 10am by the walled garden and set off to our first apiary soon after!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Dave Purchase,
Seasonal Bee Inspector  

Handling Queens

Ron Bogansky email@omitted.anti.spam

I have always enjoyed finding the queen when working a colony, but I generally refrain from touching her. I really don't like handling queens.

I guess it is like picking up a baby for the first time; your are sure you will "break it". I know Andy talks about putting queens in his mouth to hold them, and I am sure most commercial beekeepers and a number of you don't have this problem, but there are probably a few who are like me. I watched a queen breeder in my area catch queens and place them in cages. He made it look so easy.

I order my queens marked so when I do see them I know if it is the one I placed there or a supercedure. I have also raised, or at least allowed the bees to raise, their own queen. I would like to track these queens by marking them. This means catching and holding the queen in order to mark her. I tried doing this by hand and was not very successful (dropping queens on the ground, etc.). I even practiced on drones but still had trouble with queens.

I just tried something new. I bought a queen catching device and a queen marking tube. The catching device is a plastic butterfly clip that allows you to pick up the queen without hurting her. There are openings large enough for workers to pass through but not large enough for the queen. I then take the queen and place her in the marking tube. This is a plastic tube with a soft plunger and a screen at one end. You gently push the queen against the screen and mark her. I use Testors' model paint pens. I think they are easier then working with bottles. I wait a few minutes for the paint to dry and drop the queen back in the colony. I am not sure how long to wait (3 to 5 minutes?) to ensure the odor of the paint dissipates so I give the hive a few puffs of smoke. I don't know if this is necessary. I know there is also a queen marking device available that holds the queen directly on the frame while marking. I intend to give it a try also.

Even if you don't believe in marking queens, there are times when catching and holding a queen is useful. The queen catching device would really work for those occasions. Actually the more I use this the more at ease I feel handling the queens. Maybe someday I won't need the "training wheels".

Still learning.

Apiary Layout

Robert J. Cessac email@omitted.anti.spam

Can someone tell what is the best distance beehives should be spaced in an apiary? I plan to have 24 hives. Should they be all in a straight line, two 12 hive lines or four 6 hive lines? How far apart when in line and how far apart between lines? I realize the terrain will dictate part of this, but what is best for the bees and their flight patterns. I have 10 at the present time on southeast facing slope next to a small pond and a grove of trees.

In other words, what is most efficient for the bees and what is most efficient for the beekeeper? Thanks

James C Bach email@omitted.anti.spam

Bees in hives placed in straight lines tend to drift into the hives on both ends of the lines during foraging, especially if the hives are all one color. Canadian research demonstrates that hives are best placed in a U configuration to reduce drifting. Generally speaking the hive entrances should face from east to south, away from prevailing winds. I place my hives two to a homemade pallet and face each pallet at 22 or 45 degrees to the next.

I do not put the pallets in a straight row, nor behind another pallet, but set them randomly about the apiary site. I plan four to six feet between pallets so that I can work each set of two from the side of the hives (not the front or back). If forced by the size or shape of the apiary site to put the pallets closer together, I try to have ten to twelve feet between rows of pallets but each pallet turned slightly in relation to the next.

The hives should be set on level ground so that you do not have trouble walking and carrying the equipment to and from the hives. (A safety issue.)

You might want to put the pallets in two crooked rows so that you can drive your truck between the rows to reduce walking with heavy supers. The rows should be far enough apart that the bees are not greatly impacted by your truck being in their flight pattern.

Vince Coppola email@omitted.anti.spam

A friend from Ontario saw my hives all in a row and told me that research, somewhere in Canada, has determined that drifting can be minimized by changing the angle of the front of adjacent colonies by at least 30 deg. Now if I have a situation that demands a straight line I use a zig zag pattern. With pallets I just tip them one way then the other as they are set down, with H stands I make a line of 2 or 3 in a zig zag, leave a space to walk thru, then 2 or 3 more.  

Apistan Resistance in Florida

If you read the American beekeeping journals, you will have seen some recent full-page advertisements warning "Misusing Fluvalinate? Not For Long". These advertisement are as a direct consequence of the recent discovery of fluvalinate-resistant varroa in some, so far limited, areas of the 'States.

There are actually a couple of aspects to this. The resistance is believed to have developed because of abuse, both by re-use of Apistan strips and by abuse of Mavrik, a lower-cost fluvalinate. Both of these practices result in uncalibrated doses of the pesticide, accelerating the development of resistance. Use of Mavrik has a further consequence as Allen Dick explains below.

Allen Dick email@omitted.anti.spam

I'm not an expert on this; maybe Max Note: Max Watkins of Vita UK, who is speaking this November at Fleet. Ed. will respond since it is his baby, but in the meantime, since this was addressed to me, I'll take a whack at it and hope that others will add their perspectives.

First, I haven't used Apistan(R) since the eighties when a government inspector sampled our hives to determine if varroa existed here. As of yet it does not. However, I do actually plan to use some Apistan next week on the hives into which I dump our bees from the honey house windows since I need to see if any varroa has appeared locally, and will try this in addition to the alcohol wash samples we do in the yards when checking tracheal mites.

Having said that, what I understand from reading is that fluvalinate comes in both water soluble and non water soluble forms. The fluvalinate in Apistan is of the latter type and is thus not nearly as prone to get into honey as it is into wax. In fact wax would likely tend to draw it from honey on long exposure.

Additionally, fluvalinate is a pyrethroid. Pyrethroids are not very toxic to warm-blooded critters such as most humans, but quite deadly to cold-blooded ones such as insects, lizards and fish. It is a fluke that fluvalinate was found to be one pyrethroid that had relatively minor effects on honeybees while having the normal toxicity to other insects and varroa mites. (I wonder why it does not affect tracheal mites -- or does it?)

Anyhow, with Apistan, very minute, measured doses are used for limited periods of time in beehives. Indeed in the process, some fluvalinate does get dissolved in beeswax and apparently levels build over time. However, since the attraction to wax and oil based substances is much stronger than to a water based substance such as honey, honey will not hold any significant amount in the presence of wax. It's a question of mixing oil and water. Apistan use is much more a problem for wax buyers and sellers, since beeswaxes are used in cosmetics and foods, and fluvalinate residues are becoming ubiquitous in waxes from Apistan using countries.

On the other hand there are other types of fluvalinate that *are* water soluble -- and I assume much less soluble in oil and wax -- that have caused problems for beekeepers. I believe Mavrik(R) contains one of those water based types and is intended for spraying on field crops (Please correct me if I'm wrong).

Homemade treatments using strips of plywood, etc. soaked in Mavrik have been utilized by some who wished to avoid the rather high cost of Apistan. (Mavrik is very cheap). This practice has resulted in a number of problems and is also implicated in the development of fluvalinate resistance in varroa. Such water based types of fluvalinate are also much much more likely to be found in honey, since they are soluble in honey and not attracted to the wax.

At any rate, honey destined for the supers is often first placed in the brood chamber by the bees, then moved up, so at honey flow time, you can figure that anything in the brood chamber will potentially affect your honey.

Is there a danger? In terms of health, likely not. In terms of PR, perhaps. Could we have another 'Alar' scare? Again, perhaps, but I think that the public is now much more wise than at the time of the Alar scare. Very few people today believe that they can buy food without a molecule or two of some form of pesticide or drug in it. In recent years modern science has shown that it can find the equivalent of a marble in a gymnasium when it seeks 'foreign' molecules in foods.

At spraying time in this agricultural district, the amount of herbicide in the air from evaporation was such that sensitive crops miles from spraying were wilting a bit. Since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and now Pickering, people have become inured to the knowledge that radiation gets around. Nonetheless general public health and longevity has never been at higher levels in North America.

Honey processors are very careful about the products they buy and sell, and are constantly checking for fluvalinate residues among other things. I have not heard of any loads being rejected or even questioned for fluvalinate.

Does that mean that honey is safe from a panic? Nothing is, but I believe that such events are somewhat random; we've had the somewhat vague and inconclusive botulism thing around for years and for most people the reaction is `Ho hum'.

And also...

Dr Max Watkins email@omitted.anti.spam

The producers were one and the same - Sandoz! The difference is that Mavrik was especially formulated and registered at the EPA for use on agro crops, NOT FOR USE IN BEEHIVES! It is illegal and potentially hazardous to beekeepers and honey consumers to use Mavrik in beehives. THAT'S why the US Government was/is so keen to stamp it out...  

Killer Drones

Patrick O'Hearn email@omitted.anti.spam

I had an amusing (to me at least) experience over the weekend which caused me to think about smoke and alarm response. I was making splits, the weather was great, and the bees were in a mellow mood. A little bit of smoke at the entrance, and a puff or two under the lid and I was able to make splits in shirtsleeves and shorts... I was only stung once during about 4 hours of opening boxes, pulling frames, and shifting supers about.

On the fifth or so hive, I smoked them lightly and opened the box whereupon I was jumped by about 10 drones. The workers were going about their business, ignoring me but these drones were acting like an aggressive worker... the buzzing the face, the bumping into me,... all the actions a worker would take when mad enough to say "go away" but not yet mad enough to sting. This went on the entire time I was working on the hive and continued a little bit when I moved to the next hive. No queens in my pocket... no other hive acting the same way, just the one. In the past I have had one or two drones buzz and bump me from time to time but never this many and this concentrated an effort.

Brought to mind several question though...

1. If the actions were not aggression, what were they? The queens for the splits hadn't yet arrived so, no queen pheromone on me. My tee-shirt was a neutral grey, no bright colors, no tie-dye patterns. The other hives didn't invoke the same response so, maybe it was an aggressive response. Which then leads to...
2. If the actions were aggression, why would a stingless drone act aggressively? I can see a benefit for the hive...they are large, noisy bees and, to animals or humans who associate all bees with painful stings, they communicate the message "We are bees, leave us alone" very loudly. If they are swatted and killed, the hive has not lost out on the investment in a worker.
3. If it was aggression, why didn't smoke calm them like it did their sisters?

Anyway, for me that is one of the fun parts of working with bees, these little odd-ball moments that cause you to do a double-take and maybe think a bit about their actions and reactions.

Allen Dick email@omitted.anti.spam

If you have an excluder on the hive and some drone brood has been left above it to hatch -- and if your equipment does not have the leaks that much commercial equipment has -- then the drones cannot get out to fly after they hatch. That is until you open the lid; they can then explode out of the hive like a bomb going off. This is particularly true if there are many, if they have been pent up for long, and if it happens to be a hot day.

I don't know if this is what you experienced, but might help explain it.  

Queen Introduction

Introducing a new queen demands some caretaking from your side. (Remember that you have disturbed their home and they have, besides accepting a new queen, also to start repairing the damage you have done to their home). Here's what I do myself, with good results.

When you get a new queen, you mostly will be advised in advance that the queen is on its way, so that you will be there to pick the queen up from the post. The day before you want to add the new queen, remove the old queen by simply killing her, and leave the dead queen in the hive. The bees will then remove the dead queen from the hive as they remove any other trash from it. This queen killing should be done the day before You want to add the new queen Note: This time before introduction is moot. A number of knowledgeable people would leave the bees for an hour or less, provided the new queen is protected by a cage. Within a day, they may already have new emergency queen cells of their own underway. Ed..

What now goes on in the hive is that when the pheromone production stops, they get prepared to make a new queen, from one or more eggs in the brood chamber. And of course they get into a kind of panic.

The next day you introduce the new queen.

Some people are using a kind of a queen introducer. I am crafting a little cornet out of a little piece of newspaper about diameter 3/4 inch and length 2 inches. In here I with a needle put some holes. Now when I receive the new queen, I put her into this little cornet and close it, by folding the opening. If you get the queen by mail you can use the little box the queens are shipped in.

Now I cover the cornet with honey and place it in the top of the brood chamber between two frames with a lot of eggs and young larvae. Here you also will find the most nurse bees, that will protect and take care the new queen. Close the hive and let the bees alone for the next week.

Because of the honey on the the cornet, the bees will start licking of this and not behave aggressively. When they get to the cornet they will free the new queen and accept her. But they will also protect her, and if you open the hive too soon after introducing the new queen, there is a risk that this protection will kill her. It can happen that they will ball her, and thereby hurt her. And if a queen got damaged in this nesting, they will replace her.

It will always be a good idea to leave the bees alone as much as possible, and only disturb them when it is absolutely needed.

Best regards, Jorn

Pheromones play an extremely important role in a honeybees behavior. If you kill a queen, the bees don't run around thinking "The Queen is dead! The Queen is dead!, What are we going to do?"

The queen secretes her pheromones while she is in her colony. The more she lays, the more level of these pheromones is increased and the when she starts slowing down, the level of her pheromones decreases. When you kill a queen, then the substance is stopped abruptly. The honeybees notice this decrease in pheromones and begin raising emergency queens.

As a queen gets older, her egg laying starts to dwindle. When you replace her with a ripe young queen, their is an imbalance in the level of queen pheromone from the old and new queen. So, the honeybees are alerted to a "Stranger in the hive". Their urgency to raise a new queen is being pitted against their urgency to repel the intruder.

When introducing queens in cages, the new queens level of pheromone has usually decreased because she is not laying, and the colony gradually accepts her pheromone. You should leave the cage in for about 6 days so that you don't interrupt this process.

I would recommend killing the old queen 4 days before you place the new queen in the colony. This lets you know if there is another queen in the colony, makes the bees more ready to accept a "stranger". Some strains of bees will not accept different queens from other races. For instance, I have a lot of hybrid bees that would not accept a Buckfast queen if their lives depended on it. It's strange but its true.

Well I hope this is useful.

Jeff Barnett; email@omitted.anti.spam; retired(for now) queen producer.  

Apidea Mini-Nucs

A. Piercy email@omitted.anti.spam

Apidea originate in Switzerland. I talked to a bloke who had 100 for his own queen rearing unit, and he was very happy with them. He said you fill a bucket with nurse bees from several hives and then dose each mini nuc. with two or three hundred workers, leave them shut up in a cool place for a couple of days, and then introduce the queen cells. There is a chamber inside which can be filled with sugar syrup or candy for feeding the workers.

Of course I've met others who disagree entirely and would opt for a larger size of nuc. A Breton beekeeper in the local press built his own mini-nucs rather bigger than the Apidea, as he had a few failures with the Apidea and considered them too small. My informant with 100 of them was in the south of England, so temperature may be a critical factor.  

FGMO Update

While Dr. Rodriguez continues his investigations into easier methods of application of food grade mineral oil, opinions vary about his paper. The scientific community, rightly complain that he gives insufficient reliable data about his findings, whilst many who are trying it report encouraging results. It is, of course, still early days yet! Gordon.

Allen Dick email@omitted.anti.spam

"I used Apistan last spring on my first 25 colonies, this year 120 colonies with no Apistan use, just FGMO for protection. I plan on doubling every year after, so if I succeed without Apistan that alone should be proof that FGMO works."

What needs to be said here is whether you have been able to detect any varroa mites in your colonies, by what methods and at what level before you start the MO treatment.

We would all dearly love to hear the results, but without knowing the beginning conditions, we will still not have the facts we need to establish "proof that FGMO works".

Also it would be very wise to do sampling at intervals to ensure that your treatment is working since varroa can build up without causing any obvious symptoms to the point where your colonies just suddenly collapse.

If you are brave and rich and objective, you may want to have a few `controls' -- colonies that are not treated at all and/or colonies that receive Apistan so that you have something to use for reference when you are ready to come to conclusions.

The problem with controls is that if they are in the same yard, then they can be a constant source of reinfestation, and for that matter, they can be re-infested themselves if it turns out they are near colonies that have a breakdown. If they are not in the same yard, then it could be (and will be) argued that the difference in location not the treatments is at least partially responsible for observed differences, not the treatments.

Designing meaningful scientific experiments is difficult. If you'd like, why not describe in detail exactly what you plan to do, and take suggestions on how to make your experiment most meaningful. We have some pretty high powered scientific talent here chomping at the bit for a chance to prove or disprove FGMO as a varroa treatment. I'm sure they will be very helpful. We'll all learn a bit about science and collaboration in the process.

Ron Bogansky email@omitted.anti.spam

My views on the FGMO issue: I think it works and I hope that the researchers will study it and discover all that is needed to prove beyond a doubt that it is safe to use in the hive. I don't believe there is a group out there trying to undermine it on the basis of market monopoly for Apistan. But I do know that there is no commercial corporation out there that will spend any money to do research that will not generate profit. That will be left to university researchers and interested individuals, and thank God they are there. As it is been said in a number of posts there is no financial gain for a corporation to do it. I learned a number of lessons when I left the university environment and took a job doing R\amp;D for a large corporation. I was told early on that I was not here to do a great service for mankind. I was here to develop new products that the corporation will make a good profit on. When a project failed, or even succeeded but was not a financial gain, a number of good research personnel quickly found themselves unemployed.

Now some twenty years later I find myself dealing with government regulations and agencies on a daily basis. One thing I have learned is that most regulations started off with a good idea but in the bureaucracy have sometimes lost focus. I have found this to be a way of life. One shouldn't spend a lot of time trying to understand how an agency "thinks". Example: If I use FGMO on my top bars to keep the bees from building burr comb the EPA couldn't care less. However if I do the same thing to control mites, their jurisdiction kicks in.

Gary C. Lewis email@omitted.anti.spam

There is no question about oil and mites. The oil kills mites. Period. How? By covering the mite in oil and thereby smothering it.

First hand knowledge? Yes. We also raise rabbits, they get ear mites. Solution? Mineral oil, or baby, oil or olive oil, corn oil, etc. We could buy something from a Vet but you don't need to.

If you go to a Vet with a pet that has ear mites they will give you a prescription for and oil or ointment to put in the ears. Ask the vet what it does and he will tell you that it smothers the mite and they can not breath and die. The prescription from the vet may have something in it to prevent infection or scratching but the results are the same. Ask if you can use the above mentioned oils and he/she will tell you yes. Re-apply the oil in about 7 days or so and the mites that just hatched will also be killed. Any oil or cream that will cover the mites will kill them.

Bill Bartlett email@omitted.anti.spam

I checked 4 more of my hives yesterday. (Southern Maryland, USA) If you remember from a previous post I used Apistan in the early Spring and then just FGMO. Only lost one hive and I think I know why.

It was raining today, so I did not look in the last 4 hives. (I have 3 out yards) So it has been almost one year of using nothing else but FGMO and I have more bees then I have seen in 7 or 8 years. Now, I realize that this year has been different than most years in the past. There was also a question about using control hives. Since I have tried almost everything that has been suggested and still lost too many colonies.

I figured that Dr. Rodriguez did all the leg work and it was there for me to try. From the talk I hear at bee meetings, seems like many of my beekeeping friends are doing well this year with most using Apistan and grease patties. None are using FGMO.

If I can continue to use the FGMO and find that things are going one way or the other I post a short note to the effect. Soooo Far... You can't argue with success!

James C Bach email@omitted.anti.spam

This was a long post. Of necessity I have cropped some, but I hope it gives a fair view of the scientific communities reservations and concerns. Gordon

Dr. Rodrigues does say in the second paragraph of the paper that the project is incomplete but that he thinks the "release of the present findings is considered appropriate," and that "...statistical data has been carefully limited.". But I still fail to find sufficient data in the paper to support many of his statements. On the contrary, numerous questions are raised by what he says and what he does not say.

I mention the following issues and questions to help you analyze what he is or is not saying, and to demonstrate the analytical process I use when reading any scientific paper:

• On Page 2 in the next paragraph following #4: Pedro says "after continued treatment of my colonies with Apistan strips, mites continued to proliferate and that colony health and size were diminishing...." What is meant by continued treatment? Is it the label recommended time period, or the 51 weeks of the study described later? The data is missing. If the mites continued to proliferate, how did he measure this and what was the data? Usually Apistan results in the demise of 99 percent of the mite population during the recommended treatment period. What were the levels of Varroa at the beginning of his treatment? Colonies, depending on size, with 1,000 or more mites, have been observed to collapse [i.e. abscond] with Apistan hanging in the hives. Why? Because treatment was begun after mites had reached high levels.
• In the next paragraph, Pedro says the same thing again. On 1 April 1996 he applied three Apistan strips (3/colony). "After six weeks (!) of treatment with Apistan, four colonies had perished and mites continued to proliferate in all remaining colonies." At what time did the four colonies perish, in the first week? Again, mite levels must have been quite high (no data), or...
• In the next or third paragraph following #4 on page 2: Pedro says he waited for two weeks to allow Apistan to wear off. Did he determine that two weeks was sufficient based on some studies...
• In the next paragraph, top of page 3: Pedro says "Food grade mineral oil (FGMO) does not contaminate honey or honey bee products, and is not toxic to honey bees, provided that the oil is not applied in excessive quantities." Has Pedro or others conducted tests which prove these conclusions?

Pedro's Laboratory work:

• Under A, #2: Pedro says that "some mites remained active (lethal doses or lethal times were not evaluated) for some time." Why not?
• B, 1: "Yields varied between ten in a small colony to 112 in a large colony." What is a small colony? What is a large colony? Did the small colony exist because it had previously collapsed with high levels of mites?
• The same question can be asked in B, #2: What were the colony sizes?

  It seems to me that beekeepers and fellow researchers would get much more useful information from this information if we knew how many combs covered with bees (or an average) were in the test and control colonies.

Pedro's Field work:

• B, #3: Here Pedro used "(up to 2.5 cc) spread on top bars of the frames." He doesn't say whether this is a five, ten, or 20 frame hive. Consequently, it is not clear how much oil is used per comb, five combs, or ten combs of bees.

  Pedro doesn't say when he counted the mites by uncapping brood cells, I presume at the end of the test. He says "Yields varied according to degree of infestation, size of the colonies and length of treatment. ...Mite count per hundred brood cells uncapped dropped drastically (54% in some colonies to four percent in others) as oil treatment continued." Pedro doesn't give us the average mite load prior to or subsequent to treatments. A post treatment mite level drop variation from 54% to 4% per 100 cells (without average data) suggests that the FGMO may not be an effective mite control chemical. Especially is this true when it is considered that the treatment had been applied 25 times over 51 weeks!

Pedro's Observations:

• #1: Pedro claims that "FGMO can be utilized effectively to control bee mites with quantities ranging from a mere film applied on waxed paper and up to 2.5 cc applied on the top bars of the frames." Really? This statement implies that the amount of FGMO that remains on (doesn't drip off of) 1.5 x 10 inch strips of waxed paper effectively controls mites. So what is the proper or effective dose to be used per comb of bees to achieve a specific level of mite control?
• #10: FGMO was applied every two weeks for 51 weeks. That is 25 applications! "The use of mineral oil did not affect egg laying of the queens nor the health of the developing larvae" Is this just an opinion, or is it based on science or some data Pedro collected?

Based on the way the paper is written and the apparent lack of data, I cannot conclude with Dr. Rodriques, either that FGMO is effective at controlling Varroa, or that the control colonies died from Varroa alone. They may have died from a combination of "disease, lack of food, Nosema," poor queens, or other variables that occur in colonies.

I look forward to reading Dr. Rodriques' final scientific paper on FGMO. I hope it provides evidence that the product will effectively control mites, and that it will be a cost effective method to do so.

It is my opinion from talking with many bee scientists in the last 20 years that many of them also analyze scientific papers in a similar manner as I have done. They want to know the who, what, when, where, and why answers so they can duplicate their colleague's work under varying weather and geographic conditions. They also want to replicate a test several times to eliminate variables and improve the statistical reliability of the data they gather.

In my opinion, all of the fuss that has been stirred up among beekeepers, on this list, and in the scientific community, about credibility, and FGMO, is solidly based upon the lack of data in Dr. Rodriques' paper and perhaps on many of the issues I raised above. I hope his final paper will remove all doubt about FGMO.

I appreciate innovative ideas about products, chemical or otherwise, that may have potential as a miticide. I appreciate that many products used in other fields, such as veterinary medicine, may have potential as miticides for bees. Let's test them using accepted scientific principles, processes, and methods. Beekeepers can even do this work but they should use previously accepted methods uniformly, consistently, and collect the appropriate data accurately (like Allen Dick and others are doing with Nosema). If these methods are not used, tests and any results are said to be anecdotal.

I also think that anecdotal accounts of observations have some level of validity. I have learned a lot from beekeepers who have made some very analytical observations of bee colonies. If one keeps these in mind, they may add up to a word picture which has an explanation which is different than the beekeeper originally thought, and they may also lead to a potential study project which may in turn lead to a research project and some beneficial results. An example of this is the work being done, at Washington State University by Dr. Sheppard, with an extract of mint oil. The project was suggested by a commercial beekeeper who had tested the product, kept some records, and thought he was seeing some good results. Dr. Sheppard is in his second year of work with the product.

Bill Bartlett email@omitted.anti.spam

I have used FGMO since the spring of 1997. I had Apistan on very early that year and when tested found no varroa. Mostly checked drone brood and did ether roll in each apiary.

The bee inspector and I did more testing this past week. We found varroa in 3 out of 4 apiaries ( have 14 hives). One hive was full of mites. Although they produced 3 shallows of honey which is rare for this area of Maryland. They also were very strong and were preparing to swarm. Split the hive. BUT we did NOT see varroa in the brood! The ether roll showed about 25 to 35% infestation. Have used the FGMO about every 2 to 3 weeks since early Spring. I put it on every frame (top bars) in the hive leaving a small line of the oil on each frame.

After losing about half of my bees for the past several years using the other methods, I was pleased to have only lost one hive this past winter. It makes me wonder how much the varroa affects the bees and how much maybe the T- mites do. Or was it just the mild winter we had. Or are the only mites left, those that don't kill the host. Or does the FGMO keep the population down?

I plan to watch the hive with the mites closely. I did another ether roll yesterday and found the same 25 to 35% infestation. And again no mites in the brood!  

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