How Tropilaelaps mites reduce foraging efficiency of adult honey bees

Posted September 1, 2021

How Tropilaelaps mites reduce foraging efficiency of adult honey bees

While the varroa mite is the most important and widespread pest of honey bees across the world, a different mite, Tropilaelaps mercedesae, may be a bigger threat. Tropilaelaps (Photo 1) is smaller than varroa, has a faster reproductive rate, a shorter phoretic phase (i.e., the phase when mite is on adult bees and is most …

Posted September 1, 2021

Finding Queen Cells That are Almost Invisible

One of my big bee management jobs begins toward the end of the swarm season. I inspect all my colonies to make sure each one has a laying queen. Definitely by the end of June when our spring nectar flow is winding down, I need to be finishing with my queen inspections. Especially for colonies …

Posted September 1, 2021

Letters to the Editor – September 2021

You have undoubtedly read or discussed or listened to (one or more) YouTubes on varroa mites — perhaps you have digested a great deal about mites? August and September represent our last best chance to obtain varroa mite control. High mite numbers can lead to high deformed wing virus (DWV) levels and sudden colony death. …

Posted September 1, 2021

Contents – September 2021

A New Honey Label? Obstacles, Obfuscation and Optimism M.E.A. McNeil – 971 Build a Multi-use Robbing Screen Mike Haney – 979 How the Honey Bee Came to Mexico Peter L Borst. – 985 A Comparative Trial of the Pollen Subs 2020 — Part 3 Randy Oliver – 997 Observations on Pollen Subs — Part 2: …

Posted September 1, 2021

ABJ September 2021 Cover

Sarah Adkins took this photo of her husband, Travis, working bees in southwestern Oklahoma. The hives were on an alfalfa field.

Posted August 1, 2021

The Classroom – August 2021

Q Mite controls Would you please set up a survey question for readers to respond to regarding their experiences using various mite control products? Ease or difficulty of use, pros and cons, etc. Most controls are relatively expensive in my opinion. Deciding which one to use based on the manufacturers’ advertisements can be deceiving. Recently …

Posted August 1, 2021

The Secret Lives of Drones

New research is settling the debate over whether drone congregation areas really exist A common honey bee party fact is that drones fly to congregation areas to find a queen. But this nugget of knowledge is debated among scientists, since most of the data that led researchers to this conclusion used lures to attract the …

Posted August 1, 2021

August – Time to Finish Honey Processing?

Undoubtedly it was honey, one of the oldest natural sweeteners, that attracted the first humans to the honey bee. Other than ripe fruits in season, honey was just about the only sweetener in the human diet until cane sugar became common. In the early days many rural households kept bees. Bees and their hives were …

Posted August 1, 2021

Waste Management Where You Least Expect It

I shivered in the evening wind as a full moon ripped through the horizon like the morning sun. It looked white hot, but no warmth followed it into the sky. Huddled in my sleeping bag, I made a mental inventory of the desert sounds. As a youngster, I always thought the desert would be quiet …

Posted August 1, 2021

A new selective treatment for varroa that doesn’t harm other organisms

One problem with chemical pesticides is although they work on the bad guys (i.e., the target pests), they also work on the good guys (e.g., the organisms you aren’t trying to harm, such as bees or butterflies). This means using chemical pesticides is a bit of a scorched-earth approach to managing problems. On the one …

How Tropilaelaps mites reduce foraging efficiency of adult honey bees

Posted September 1, 2021