the last 6 years is the most coincidental time in human history. I remember when humans didnt believe in coincidences and investigated thing properly, but now we must believe there are more of them then there are bees on earth...
Clarification from a European beekeeper who had to deal with mites since the very beginning: 0. Don't panic! Bees do survive for quite some time after infection. We usually don't do any mite-treatment between December and July/August. 1. Treatment against mites costs about 10€ per hive in one-time initial costs and around 5€ per year for the chemicals. Most beekeepers use organic acids (formic acid and/or oxalic acid). Though especially formic acid is quite corrosive in concentrated form, a few minutes after the application ends there is no more danger. Since both oxalic acid and formic acid are naturally part of honey contamination is (if applied correctly) not a risk. There are other treatments such as hyperthermy (kind of an artificial fever for the hive) or biotechnological methods such as removing all of the brood, which contains most of the mites. 2. Treatment is very effective, if done correctly. 3. Beekeepers, stay away from the real poisons (acarizides). They will lose their effectiveness quickly due to developing resistance, contaminate your beeswax forever and harm the bees health. 4. There are breeding programs for mite-tolerant bees, but real, long-term resistance has not yet been achieved, especially if you don't strictly control queen bee mating. Plus bees are adapted to the location they live in, requiring either re-doing the resistance breeding or the adaption-breeding. 5. No need to do constant checking - Eventually all hives will be infected all the time. You just do your scheduled mite-treatment and continue as normal otherwise. PS: If you are an Australian bee-keeper and would like to discuss things feel free to comment here or reach out to me directly.
I also find it strange that this is trying to worry us about One Sort of bee after pointing out that it's not the only type available. Yeah, the problem with the internet is that much of human nature remains stuck in early childhood: we want answers now as opposed to truth in its time. "The ice caps are melting" turns out to be an "in certain areas" phenomenon, not accurate in measuring the planet's amounts. There are two books out there collecting all the studies on viruses done since the Spanish flu of 1917. Turns out you can't contract them through any form of contagion, period. But people make up their minds based on which notion enters into their ears first.
Sounds good except the pressure will fall on the wild hives which are untreated. Have you considered neem? There may be a predatory mite that will eat these.
Pretty sure you meant "hyper" (over) thermia rather than hypo (under). This one seems like it lends itself the least expensive technological solution and a little googling yields the existing youbee system which provides a wax honeycomb foundation layer for every frame that is heated to and held at at 42C, killing the mites and their larvae.
We already had a terrible parasite issue in this country without the varroa mite. Unfortunately our major-party politicians are even harder to get rid of.
as a retired beekeeper with 25 hives a few things should be made clear to help this problem..... 1, the use of pesticide strips as recomended.... 2 the mite is rather clumsy so we developed an open floor, made of fine st/steel mesh.....the mite often fall off the bee and end up on the ground..... then they cant get back up to the hive... My resident hedgehoge used to shuffle under the hives to clean uo the fallen mites..... It didn't stop the infestation completly but kept it under control..... costs are minimal and no more strong chemicals..... Try it, what ya gotta loose.... It's not a complete disaster for everyone.....
I would not recommend to use pesticide strips. The pesticides are fat-soluble and thus accumulate in the wax, harming the health of bees, making mites resistant and getting into the honey as well. Use organic acids such as formic acid, oxalic acid, lactic acid, ... They require a bit more precautions when administering, but are the far superior in the long term.
@@MinnesotaBeekeeper I have seen a local hedgehog also often spending time around my hives (Austria). I assume it eats dead/weak bees which are thrown out by the workers.
I have read " in some hives the Queen Bee will stop laying for ten , twelve , fourteen days to break the varroa mite cycle " .... so there is a natural defence statergy .... ? Removing the Queen and establishing a new colony .... ? ? ? Letting the current colony just deal with the mite ... ???
That sounds like you genetically train the mites that only the smart and better climbing ones survive and just in a few hundred generations thay will probably addept in just a few years
The varroa came in on timber shipment through the Port of Newcastle (AU) from the Port of Nelson (NZ). The authorities covered up this information to prevent a class action lawsuit against the Federal Government of Australia. The Federal Government of Australia wanted the varroa mite introduced into the country so they could complete an amended quarantine-free trade agreement with New Zealand called "Second Protocol". Varroa was a deal breaker in that agreement. When varroa was discovered in Australia, the agreement had been in talks for over 10 years at that point. The "Second Protocol" was signed and ratified only 13 months later in August 2023. Not such a coincidence...
@@az-yq3rk I'm in Australia. That's exactly the reason I buy ONLY Australian grown. I noticed this type of message on packaging years ago. I'd ring the company and ask where the food was actually grown. Now there's times when I have to look hard and deep to find a phone number. If I can't find a way to contact a company then I think that's just too bad and I won't buy the product. I ring companies and tell them I won't buy their product if it's grown in China. I have absolutely nothing against the Chinese people, the government or otherwise, but I know that terrible chemicals are used in the growing of food in that heavily populated country. I just go without that product.
I Helped a bee out of a spiders web once ...the spider was there but i though your not gonna have this little lady today so i pulled her out off the web and she stayed with me for a moment to fix herself up abit then she flew away ...precious little thing ....Gods gift to man
Yes, they are grateful little things. I did the same once when I was swimming at the beach, poor little thing was clinging to life to a piece of wood & must have been exhausted. I took him on my hand back to shore and put some water nearby. I’m allergic to bees so it was a risk but no sting thank goodness
@@cleft_3000try getting rid of your over-sensitivity to bees, by eating our natural diet which is only raw sweet fruits preferably tropical. Ask me for more information.
and because you denied the spider it's nutrition, it died...and failed to kill the Dwarf Ransom Bee-tle that later landed on it's web, and sadly it ended up attacking multiple bee colonies and wiped out 10 million bees
While I agree it could be, the WEF and other such dark entities have their fingers in many things...please consider the sheer amount of stupidity within the work force system. Based on limited experiences with management and higher ups in the work force...it seems to me the higher one is in the work force, the stupider you are (generally speaking). One case in point: I used to volunteer at the Oncology carpark at a large Brisbane hospital, making life a little less stressful for cancer patients and family upon their visits. Though my interactions with staff were minimal, I noticed a trend...ground staff knew how to do their job, and do it well...thier knowledge came from experience....but anything above that level of occupation, and the folks in those positions had little understanding on how to efficiently run the floor, though of course, they were deluded in thinking they knew better...a side affect of being higher up than others perhaps. And then there was a rare visit from some high up grand pubar nurse or something, I never found out her actual title...she decided that parking in the ambulance bay, which of course , was right outside the main entrance, was the best place to park her car. I actually confronted her respectfully about this is for the ambulances only. She didn't see her parking in that bay was a problem for the efficient running of the oncology department. Then there was the head bloke who looked after all the oncology departments for the state of QLD...he went one better and parked his car across three bays in the visitor carpark...he consciously chose to do this instead of parking, at least, in one single bay...as the visitor carpart was strictly designated for cancer patients and family,as parking in that section of the city was extremely limited, thus why one intelligent person higher up, made sure there was a designated carpark for patients. Back to the bee fiasco...fearfully avoiding taking responsibility for one's mistakes, sadly, is a all too common human weakness, regardess of social standing or position...thus another reason the bee infection could have been a typicla managerial beaurocracy error, and not a WEF intentional plan.
Laws changed in 2021 allowing up to 3% of the total population of a lab to escape. Reports were released showed that a lab studying modified mosquitos that encephalitis, West Nile and other diseases in the US followed.🤯The powers that be are also trying to bolster their climate disaster declaration scenarios to control the masses. There is no such thing! They are called cycles. Remember hearing, it's a 100 year storm? Well, the cores actually prove cycles! In the 1990s, manipulations of the climate began and decades of ice data was lost. But they have the originals! The answer has always been conservation, wildlife, forest, agricultural conservation and replenishment. The powers that be stopped following Yehovah's rules of the land in the 40s and 50s. And now we see the result, non-nutrishous food and the death of once luscious farmlands. Including our physical bodies as well. You are what you eat. If we return to Yehovah and His laws and statues, And He will be our God. and He will provide fruitful lands to His faithful.
No the people that make sure the bees bought in from overseas at the port in Newcastle weren't doing their job properly. I live in the red zone and two years after 1st detection, there hasn't been any bees seen. We normally have bees throughout our clover, but last year there was one or two and this year there has been none seen. I am having to pollinate my vegetable garden myself and I had to do it last year as well. I am thinking of getting our native stingless bees.
I worked on a farm in the far north east of NSW Australia near Lismore for around 20y. We introduce native bee hives not long after converting to organics and while it took a little while we reached a point where I could see that we would be able to split enough hives to adequately pollinate all of the fruit trees. At first I was worried that the native bees wouldn't pollinate non native trees but after working in the trees for long enough around flowing I observed the tiny guys landing on the flowers and doing what I assume bees do best. Unfortunately they only produce a small amount of honey but it is absolutely delicious in my opinion. Oh and the wax is equally as nice, it has such a lovely aroma.
I'm a bee keeper in Ireland , I don't treat my bees for varroa with any chemicals, I disturb the brood as little as possible for the cluster to be able to maintain the core temperature as high as possible . During a feed shortage I give sugar syrup or fondant with raw garlic and onion added , a tip I got from a Latvian bee keeper . Very little online regards onion/garlic varroa research . I just knock up syrup/fondant till it stinks of garlic and onion and the bees savage the stuff all that's left is the hard skin of the garlic.
This is from a person in Bulgaria who lives in a small town with lots of farming around. I myself am not a farmer, but I have had dealings with different farming. From there, I also know that Lavender is a very strong insect repellant, except for bees, which love that stuff. A quick google search shows that lavender is effective against the mites, and I am suggesting dropping a handful bouquet of lavender in the hive. Try with one, as we do not really know if long exposure to it to the bees would be harmful or not, or how it would affect the honey.
@@einname9986 I wouldn't think so. It takes an awful lot of garlic to infuse even a small jar of honey (plus weeks to months of time) to actually make the honey taste and smell of garlic. The bees would have to be eating nothing but garlic for the entire time to actually infuse the flavor into it. Just feeding them a little here and there when flower nectar is scarce isn't very likely going to effect the taste of the honey.
btw thats how fire ants got here as well, the problem is with the way funding is allocated for these problems, the liberals and labor don't want to set up a funding structure to eliminates these pets , the nationals have tried to explain , but its better to build a new road in Sydney that gets you millions of votes than to set up a fund for pet eradication. the way the funding works now is once it becomes a problem then funding is given.
Ive been working in my backyard all summer since retiring and been watching Honey Bees coming & going from my plants. With the drought in central Texas, the plants haven't been producing flowers so I began feeding them and love sitting back and watching so many bees coming to my house and imagining the bees returning to their hive amd dancing around telling the others where to find nector
NEVER feed honey to bees (+ if you are not a beekeeper, don't feed sugar either) Honey (especially the cheap one with unclear or mixed origin) often contains pathogens (e.g. American Foulbrood) that can quickly kill the hives and spread to other, not yet infected hives, causing massive financial harm to beekeepers. In Europe if we find any infection of AFB all bees have to be killed or, if they are still strong enough, removed from the hive and put in a dark and cold location without food to purge the disease from their bodies. All of the equipment has to be either burnt on site or sterilized using sodium hydroxide, a highly corrosive substance. All bees in a radius of 3 kilometers have to be checked for the disease and, if found to be sick treated as described above. Moving any bees within that radius will be banned for months (so no selling of colonies or queens, no moving queens to mating apiaries and no moving bees to crops where they can forage for nectar). So NEVER EVER EVER feed honey to bees. Do not feed sugar to bees either - Beekeepers know when and how to feed their bees. Giving sugar might contaminate the honey and decrease its quality, might lead to bees fighting to their death for the food. Sugar syrup might even be directly poisonous to bees as it can contain hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (It is generated when sugar is getting too hot and it is toxic to bees)
NEVER feed honey to bees (+ if you are not a beekeeper, don't feed sugar either) Honey (especially the cheap one with unclear or mixed origin) often contains pathogens (e.g. American Foulbrood) that can quickly kill the hives and spread to other, not yet infected hives, causing massive financial harm to beekeepers. In Europe if we find any infection of AFB all bees have to be killed or, if they are still strong enough, removed from the hive and put in a dark and cold location without food to purge the disease from their bodies. All of the equipment has to be either burnt on site or sterilized using sodium hydroxide, a highly corrosive substance. All bees in a radius of 3 kilometers have to be checked for the disease and, if found to be sick treated as described above. Moving any bees within that radius will be banned for months (so no selling of colonies or queens, no moving queens to mating apiaries and no moving bees to crops where they can forage for nectar). So NEVER EVER EVER feed honey to bees. Do not feed sugar to bees either - Beekeepers know when and how to feed their bees. Giving sugar might contaminate the honey and decrease its quality, might lead to bees fighting to their death for the food. Sugar syrup might even be directly poisonous to bees as it can contain hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (It is generated when sugar is getting too hot and it is toxic to bees)!
@n8errific no clue. Maybe these weren't wild bees. Either way they never shown any aggressive behavior towards me, the dogs or the cat that hangs around. Will miss them during our winter month is south Central Texas
@@n8errific Not sure about "killer bees", but usually bees (and wasps as well) will not be aggressive as long as you don't get near their nest and don't attack them. They only attack if they feel threatened.
Oxalic acid/glycerin extended release strips have been shown to be very effective in stopping varroa mites. If you make them yourselves, which is easy to do, the cost is around $2 per hive per treatment, With 2 to 4 treatments per year. See Randy Oliver at Scientific Beekeeping.
Another solution: Dripping oxalic acid solution mixed with sugar, essential oils and water onto the bees. Costs probably much less (though it only works when there is no capped brood) Also possible: Sublimating oxalic acid within the hive. (also only works when there is no brood or has to be repeated a few times to get all mites) Since you should switch between two or more treatment options to avoid mites getting resistant use formic acid evaporation in summer and oxalic acid in winter, when there is no capped brood (or cause artificial brood break if you have no summer)
@@einname9986 It's not really clear that one has to worry about the mites becoming resistant to oxalic acid. Apparently oxalic acid might work by harming the feet of the mites. In any case I rather doubt that changing the delivery method would affect the resistance question. The extended release strips are quick and easy to put in. And they have been very effective.
@@davegaetano7118 delivery method probably does not change resistance problem, but I wrote about formic acid evaporation, which also kills mites inside the brood. I heard about oxalic acid working because bees become toxic for mites. Would make more sense since oxalic acid solution mixed with sugar dripped onto bees is probably quickly eaten by the worker bees, so mites will not get in contact with oxalic acid.
I am the laziest man I know and the strips seem like a great idea. I have looked into making them myself but they seem like a pain in the ass. In Queensland we dont get too cold and brood breaks are non existent. Do screened bottom boards work well? I have seen mesh ones but the bees usually propolise them up.
@@poison2433 i've never used a screened bottom board. It's not difficult at all to make the extended release strips. Especially if you make a big batch that will last for a year or two. (I refrigerate the extra sponge strips in Ziploc bags, but I don't know if the refrigeration is needed.) One thing that helps a lot is to have a couple of towels under the pan that the Swedish sponges are in. The towels act as insulation, giving the sponges much more time to soak up the liquid before it cools and solidifies. After pouring the liquid mix of glycerin and oxalic acid onto the sponges in the pan, put more towels on top for more insulation. Any extra mix can be put into a container and saved for next time.
As a beekeeper its one of the most important things to teach other beekeepers. Treat for the mites or be willing to replace your bees far more often. I had a failed treatment last year and lost 80% of my hives. This year I've hit them hard and so far so good. I don't check for mites I just treat for them with OA(Oxalic Acid).
Neonicotinoid pesticides commonly found in agricultural areas kill bees and hurt their ability to reproduce, two separate large-scale studies confirmed for the first time Thursday. The two studies - one that examined honeybees in Canada and the other that looked at three bee species in the United Kingdom, Germany and Hungary - were the first large-scale investigations to test the popular agrochemicals influence on bees in real world settings.The work also turns many preconceived notions about bees and pesticides on their heads. While many studies had connected neonicotinoids - a common class of insecticides derived from nicotine - to bee deaths in the past, few studies had examined how much pesticide is needed to harm bees or how long the exposure must take. Critics argued previous scientific studies used unrealistic quantities of pesticides in their experiments. The new studies say the environmental levels of neonicotinoids surrounding farms do not obliterate bee colonies outright, but instead kill them over extended periods of time. The pesticides also threaten bee queens in particular - which means colonies have lower reproductive rates.
What part of the world you live? Dang I thought running some beehives wouldn’t be that hard but taking a hit like that sounds super costly in both time and maybe $$
@@ashtongaeta2581 Also lobby for the growers to stop using chemicals as pesticides. Neonicotinoid pesticides commonly found in agricultural areas kill bees and hurt their ability to reproduce, two separate large-scale studies confirmed for the first time Thursday. The two studies - one that examined honeybees in Canada and the other that looked at three bee species in the United Kingdom, Germany and Hungary - were the first large-scale investigations to test the popular agrochemicals influence on bees in real world settings.The work also turns many preconceived notions about bees and pesticides on their heads. While many studies had connected neonicotinoids - a common class of insecticides derived from nicotine - to bee deaths in the past, few studies had examined how much pesticide is needed to harm bees or how long the exposure must take. Critics argued previous scientific studies used unrealistic quantities of pesticides in their experiments.
I thought those little bee mites looked like bed bugs. I know they're not, hopefully, but my ears perked up when you mentioned heating an area to 104 degrees Fahrenheit in an effort to control Australia's mite problem is also one of the same solutions to eradicate bed bugs, maybe the best solution, imo..
@@homelessEh Accordingvto US statistics, House cats are several orders of magnitude worse than wind turbines. House cats clock in at 2,400,000,000 dead birds followed by glass windows at 600 million, vehicles at 214 million, poisons at 21million and somewhere down the list we see wind turbines at 250.000. We could build a thousand times as many wind turbines and would still just scratch 10% of the deaths that House cats cause.
Unfortunately, our reliance one one single species of honey bee worldwide was caused by us. There used to be more than enough native pollinators everywhere to, but because humans love sweet sugary stuff, Bees were introduced where the shouldn't be and with the aide of pesticides and poor practices of farmers... native pollinators were pushed out.
Not necessarily, I'm not sure about Australia, but here in the PNW there are many, many species of native bees that are responsible for pollinating so many of our orchards, fruits & vegetables. But these are "solitary bees", they don't form colonies like the European Honey Bee & they don't make honey. Except for our many species of native Bumblebees & they do form colonies & make small "honey pots". But we have been promoting our native bee populations & the results are good. Give them the right habitat, forage throughout the year & nesting places, they can be a sure bet in the wake of the awful collapse of honey bee colonies. Natives, after all, are NATIVE, the beloved Honey Bee is from Europe.
There are over 1650 known native bee species and subspecies in Australia some are very pretty with an irridecent backside in a very bright blue such as the Blue Banksia bee then there is the Blue Banded Bee with the males and females differentiated with the number of stripes Males five stripes females four stripes and there are plenty of native pollinators including moths and butterflys
the commercial bees and dependend food crops aint going away, there are working treatments and the mites simply raise cost .. its some wild bee species which will be eradicated, but nature will always adapt ... either via resistant bee species or with other insect/plant species taking the gaps being created. people need to stop peeing their pants other the loss of species, that happened long before humans came around and just opens new windows for new species emerging.
bees aren't the only pollinators, so even if they were all wiped out (not likely) it wouldn't lead to an eradication of food crops, just a reduction, unless the remaining pollinators saw population increases. Not to understate the problem, since many other pollinators are also under pressure due to climate change and loss of habitat.
One growing business is for farmers to rent ducks as pest control , plus you get eggs. Lobby for the outlaw of chemicals insecticides. Neonicotinoid pesticides commonly found in agricultural areas kill bees and hurt their ability to reproduce, two separate large-scale studies confirmed for the first time Thursday. The two studies - one that examined honeybees in Canada and the other that looked at three bee species in the United Kingdom, Germany and Hungary - were the first large-scale investigations to test the popular agrochemicals influence on bees in real world settings.The work also turns many preconceived notions about bees and pesticides on their heads. While many studies had connected neonicotinoids - a common class of insecticides derived from nicotine - to bee deaths in the past, few studies had examined how much pesticide is needed to harm bees or how long the exposure must take. Critics argued previous scientific studies used unrealistic quantities of pesticides in their experiments.
We’re in NSW and our hives get inspected twice per week. No signs of mites. Had independent lab testing and still no mites. We already have an injunction in place, with our solicitor, in case we get contacted.
Sorry to break the news to you, but at some point the mites will reach your colonies as well. I am a european bee-keeper who had to deal with mites since the very beginning. If you would like to discuss things around treatment, ... and learn how we do it here feel free to comment below or reach out to me directly.
@ I have no doubt that we will see them eventually. we are on the lookout twice per week and so far no problems. Right now we are preemptively treating with Formic acid and apitraz. We also use periodic powdered sugar treatments and have seen good progress. We are fully off grid for 12 years now and live a fair distance from civilization. What are you using to treat in Europe?
@@VividMotorsportsmost will use oxalic acid or a oxalic/formic acid combination, there are also apivar strips and treatments like apiguard that use thymol treatment. Oxalic is popular, but for best results to administer during a brood break (for me my bees are naturally broodless around Early December). This way there are no mites hiding under cappings. Queens can also be caged to induce a brood break. Outside of broodless periods I use varromed (oxalic/formic) if required, can use weekly over a period of brood cycles. Oxalic can be administered by either vaporisation or made into a syrup and trickled over the bees.
@@VividMotorsports I did write quite a long reply, but somehow it does not appear here. So a quick summary as I don't want to write everything again: Treatment I do is formic acid twice in summer (after honey harvest and in September), using Nassenheider Evaporator (recommended as little harm to bees + brood and works with temperatures up to 35°C - other methods only work in colder weather and/or cause damage to brood/queen) plus 1 oxalic acid solution treatment in winter. Other methods used in europe, but not by me: Total brood removal, hyperthermy, sublimation of oxalic acid, dripping oxalic acid + formic-acid mix, Thymol, ... DO NOT USE APITRAZ/COUMAPHOS/... (they are fat soluble, toxic and will accumulate in the wax, harm bees long-term and mites will get resistant). In Europe we stopped using it decades ago but wax is still contaminated. Plus there is no need to treat when you don't yet have mites. Wait until they arrive, check regularly if you have some (dead mites will fall down. Put tray covered by mesh on bottom board, so you see any mites that fell off. If no tray is there bees or ants will remove fallen mites. Number of mites fallen off can be used as approximation on how bad hives are affected) and only then treat against them. Bees survive at least half a year without treatment (in Europe we don't treat between December and August to avoid contamination of honey). Any further questions?
@@VividMotorsports If you'd like to chat via zoom or something we could also do that. I'd also be interested in how beekeeping works in Australia - I assume a lot different than in Austria, where I live
UK beekeeper here. yep. these mites are a pain. But we do know how to manage the pest, but it does mean that all honey bees you ever see now are kept by humans. honeybees can NOT survive in the wild for more than about 3 years without human intervention once infested. fortunately our honeybees are not the world's top food crop pollinator. They only make up about 4% in reality. Mankind would not starve without honeybees to pollinate crops. Common misconcpetion. Interesting vid and well presented. 👍🏻🇬🇧
Northern US Beekeeper here. We have many feral colonies that do fine with mites year after year. I am tracking one such tree-bound colony. What kills them is late-season swarms. We also have commercial beeks that are treatment free. See Ross Conrad. 1/3 of the food we eat is Apis pollinated. We would not starve but many of the nuts and fruits and spices we love would get so expensive and/or scarce that we would bee like the Irish and subsist on potatoes and cabbage. jk. No thank you. You like almonds?? say good by to them if not for Apis
It’s funny how since the US have put bases around Australia that strange viruses and such have come into the country. We were all taught that due to its geographic location Australia was extremely unlikely to have these foreign issues. If authorities incinerated all of the European bee hives in a 100 kilometre radius (we don’t use miles and inches here) then wouldn’t the mites die thereby avoiding the already problematic chemical treatment. This sounds like a deliberate failure by our government to me. If we lost the European bees we would only lose the honey. There are plenty of insects that existed here way before the honey bee was introduced that will keep on pollinating the native flora.
I use cotton-tip swabs and/or small paint brushes for hand pollination. Works for smaller gardens, but the process can be impossibly time consuming and impractical for much larger veggie gardens and certainly not viable solution for pollinating crops. However, bees are not the only pollinators. There are many beneficial flowers that can be companion planted to attract not only bees but also other pollinators -- as well plants that will help deter pests and even those that can be planted farther away as decoys to attract pests because pests prefer them over the veggie garden when given a choice. All of those used in combination is the most beneficial. Plus, simply placing a left over watermelon rinds or spoiled, split open fruit on top of the ground will also attract many types of pollinators -- bees, flies, butterflies, etc. -- and doesn't require watering, fertilizing or weeding and the rind or fruit can be composted afterwards.
As a UK beekeeper, the sight of those hives killed off due to varroa was shocking and sad. Over here we manage the impact of varroa during brood breaks with oxalic acid treatment in winter, and if necessary by isolating the queen at other times of the year, I’ve never had to treat in summer (oxalic acid sublimation and dribble). Some use pesticides at the end of summer. There’s also drone brood removal, as the mite’s reported to prefer these cells. This seemed to be a serious overreaction.
Lol idk why I'm just realizing he keeps his mouth covered to sell the illusion that it's his voice. The exaggerated enunciations in his visual performance helps sell the illusion as well, bravo
There are about a dozen native bees that are unaffected. They are as effective at polinating as the European bees. They are not as commercial as they don't produce commercially viable quantities of honey.
Sadly the native bees go about in roo skins, smoking wattle & renaming all the rocks - as they've been here for longer than they have the numbers to count. (But it is a long time.) Many, many years...
So, what, we just let these incredibly destructive parasites roam free and destroy even more bee colonies- domesticated and otherwise? Especially in environments like Australia where we didn't even have the kind of bees that they came over with in the first place.
I wouldn't put ANYthing past them at this point. Edit 1mo later: The above was almost tongue in cheek, but after seeing the 1hr40min long Tucker Carlson interview of an _average_ nobody DC attorney named Passantino, who represented a Cassidy Hutchinson before the Democrat led J6 Committee & how Democrats (& RINO female version of Scar from Lion King, LIz Cheney & The View Alyssa Farrah) were willing to play out a fantastically, _bizarrely_ convoluted plot just to make Hutchinson's later lies seem plausible AND the fact Democrats & Cheney were willing to _ruin_ Passantino's career & LIFE in order to do so.... _NEVER AGAIN will I put ANYthing past Democrats, forEVER at this point). Go listen for yourself, it's BEYOND egregious, it's _downright EVIL_ & IF it had succeeded??????? The results would truly have been comparatively nothing more than a thorn in Trump's paw to everything else he was facing, as it were.
You bring the temperature of the bees down to freezing and have them on screen and the mites will die and fall off through the screen and the bees can be resurrected I don't remember the temperature but this technique is used in Siberia Russian friend told me this at work.
Never heard of that. But another option: Hyperthermy, kind of an artificial fever. You heat up the bees plus their brood to a certain temperature. The bees survive, the mites don't. (Though I've never tried that - I stick with the tried method of organic acids)
@@Graham_Wideman Thanks, fixed that. English is a foreign language so somehow my brain has remembered a wrong translation (though the translation from german is really straightforward ^^)
As a pest controller in the affected are ot was a wild time. When the order to kill all wild hive that we found come down and was put into affect the amount of wild Karen's that come out of the wood work was insane
If there is one thing I have noticed in beekeeping, its that people are lazy and wont do the bare minimum a lot of the time or they will cut corners. Then they will incur losses on a greater scale and then complain about it and seek sympathy. Unfortunate reality is that its so easy to beekeep when things are good and it gives people the arrogance to half ass.
@@Alan-fv1or It is a valid strategy to not do mite checks and just follow the treatment plan. If you have lots of colonies it becomes quite a lot of additional work to do regular mite checks (beekeeping in most cases is not really profitable anyway, so regularly checking for mites is often just a cost that you have to cut, especially if you don't do it as a hobby but as a job). If you have a working treatment plan adding mite checks are not really necessary either, because the only benefit it might bring is to be able to omit a treatment (which is usually cheap, requires little work and does little harm to the bees)
Before varroa invaded, beekeeping WAS easy. Now it seems near impossible without micromanaging all your hives. It is not a hobby for the casual who just likes having honeybees (or wants an easy ag exemption). I have an older friend who grew up on an apiary and she's shocked when I tell her what's required to keep hives alive nowadays.
In recent years, a predatory mite has been flagged as being particularly promising to control the Varroa, bringing hope to beekeepers. This beneficial mite, called Stratiolaelaps scimitus, has been shown to attack and feed upon the Varroa in the laboratory.
Laboratory != real world. Example: 80% Alcohol (Ethanol) is shown to kill all kinds of pathogens in the laboratory. In the real world it just tastes gross and makes you drunk.
@@einname9986 Most of the time, nothing in the laboratory is the same as in the real world. For example: They use highly concentrates and extractions instead of using the actual plant and administer extremely high dosages impossible to consume then proclaim "this food is dangerous and should be banned or consumption restricted." Or, they only test an additive added to a single food being fed in normal quantities for a short time and proclaim "this is safe" but then add it to ALL foods so people are forced to consume far more massive amounts of it and they do so far longer so end up with cancer or other health issues.
I planted a part of my yard into a native area. It is now a registered Monarch Waystation as I have the full life cycle. Since then I also have so many other insects and birds. I went from a few to seeing up to 50 birds at a go in my little yard. Species I had never seen in my area before. Every little bit counts. Added benefit is no lawn to spend countless hours and money on. Mow once a year and done. Needless to say my gardens never suffer from lack of pollination now.
Good on you - for doing, and telling! Every little bit counts, indeed, and inspiring individuals to worry about their own ' little ' circle of influence/garden/farm is what we need, and can be very powerful, if taken up by enough people. Good incentive to make our backyard more insect and bird friend;y!
@@davidminer7233maybe, just maybe, an ecosystem needs all insects. Because if you lose one species, you might end up losing another one because of it. And before you know it, flowers aren’t pollinated. And the system collapses
I understand why you like your anonymity and want to keep it. You are a very busy person!! You have so many channels to narrate that you don't have time for dealing with so many distraction plus with having all those channels comes the idea that you make a lot of money from these videos... and here comes all the people begging for a handout!! My niece plays music at a lot of events and has written some books and all of a sudden everyone thinks she's wealthy!! She and her husband have day jobs and it barely pays the bills... By the way to me it is kind of like an Easter egg hunt to locate your channels because I love the way you tell the stories and present the facts in them and it is rewarding to find your channels. Keep up the good work!!
I was still living in Tasmania when the Hobartians started putting backpacks on the bees, very clever initiative....live in Victoria now out in a beautiful rural zone. Thanks so much, love your uploads 😊
This is like when Chairman Mao had all the "Tree Sparrows" killed off because the thought that they were eating too much of the grain crops. BUT, it began an infestation of all the insects like grasshoppers that did way more damage. Turns out, the sparrows were keeping all those destructive insects in check and that sparrow's food intake was less than one third grains and over two thirds insects. China had to import sparrows from Russia to try and fix the problem which took about 3 years to rectify. A Chinese biologist warned the Mao government about what would happen and they put him in prison. Some of the areas of China also knew that this was an insane order and didn't kill any sparrows in their provinces. Australia has had other idiotic environmental disasters like the importing of Emus and a particular species of frogs and rabbits. Afterward, even the attempted eradication of the invasive species turned into a disaster.
Aussie bees make like 500gm of honey a year which sells for a few thousand. We have blue native bees too, instead of yellow. But the main native bees look like black flies and are stingless.
The best thing to use is calcium oxalate in a smoker or a burner it kills the mites almost instantly within 12 hours I had almost 200 mites drop onto my bottom board after the fourth smoking there was maybe four or five
Suggestion: I like the purple hive experiment idea using camera monitoring, what if they were to equip a laser or micro jet chemical spray nozzle to zap the mite on any infected bee recognised entering or leaving the hive, this could be setup as a standardised mobile unit that could be transferred and just clipped into place of entrance from hive to hive as the mite problems are eradicated in each zone or hive. This should not require much power for remote areas (battery & Panel maybe), and could drastically reduce chemical usage to a bear minimum or zero if using a few low intensity lasers instead of chemicals. Let me know if this idea ever takes off (if it hasn’t already been done), good info, cheers.
OR you could just learn about how nature works and achieve bee welfare by implementing methods and mechanisms that have been honed over gazillions of years of evolution.... which take careful observation and implementation and a genuine love for bees and their wellbeing - at least slightly outweighing the greed factor ...just saying...😉
Hmmm.. good question ??🤔 Maybe they're trying to kill us all with biological warfare, gene splicing, g.m.o's, pesticides, plastics, chemtrails, flouride, heavy metals, and electromagnetic radiation. But these are just "conspiracy theories" Heavily factually evidenced, conspiracy theories.😅
Sounds like the thing to do with the smart hives is to detect the mite, then automatically increase the temp to 104 for whatever time is needed, then turn off the heater. This was very interesting. I've heard about the mites from a friend with hives but not the deep dive you did. Great job.
Man I adore your hard work. I like any single video you post and I have a wish. Plz when you use imperial units have a subtitle in international units too. Many watchers watch utube videos late at night and it kinda sucks to use my inner calculator that late. Feet meter inches galons . It's a mess. Outside US people might wonna enjoy your videos and I'm one of them
Seriously, everyone everywhere should learn and know how to use and convert between all units of measure. Those who work in health, many industries, and various sciences are required to do so. Regardless, there are plenty of calculators and tables which will do the work instead. The very idea of converting to a single unit of measure worldwide is only dumbing down future generations even further. What's next? A single language? A single culture?
💔😢 I have no words for how heartbreaking this is. (Well...maybe just a thought or two...I always planted zinnias among my vegetable plants to attract bees. Watching a bee at work visiting the flowers is amazing. One early morning the temperature had dropped quickly and I found a handful of bees curled up in the raspberry hedge...as soon as the sun warmed them and the temp came up to 55+F they flew off.) Thanks for your video.
The worrying thing that nobody is talking about is the massive reduction in general flying insects. Anyone 40-50 years old like myself will remember 20-30 years ago the time we spent cleaning bugs off our windshields. This just has almost stopped happening now. Im in the UK but im sure this isnt isolated to the UK
I enjoy your videos they have a lot of information and it's entertaining. As far as the whole incognito thing I like it for no other reason than it irritates a lot of the people on here. And as far as the fidgeting we all have nervous habits it's not a problem. I am curious however who's Steve? Thanks for the video keep doing you
What I am missing here is the observation that the described way of beekeeping, with continuous transporting and only bringing the bees into mono cultures also weakens the bees, as this is a very unnatural, sub-optimal way for bees to live. They normally need a diverse nature with plants blooming all spring to fall.
That's just for commercial purposes. It's next to impossible for casual hobbyists/enthusiasts to have bees in their yard without high expenses, micromanagement, luck, and a lot of errors. Even hives allowed to just peacefully live in a yard are ravaged by varroa destructor mites. It wasn't this way before the spread of this mite.
@@iguanac6466 I cannot agree for Europe: yes, Varroa mite is a problem here also for hobbyists but under the more natural conditions most hives survive with few protective actions.E.g. in Berlin hobby beekeepers are thriving since a few years.
Look at the honey trail, sorry money trail. Q. Who stands to lose if many naturally pollinating food sources almost disappear.? A. The world's population and other living organisms and our future survival. Q. Who stands to make a fortune from a monopoly if farmers have buy and sow only patented genetically grown seeds$ fed with patented chemical fertilisers$ and sprayed with dangerous pesticides$.? A =?
@@jamesmaralyn6745 Exactly! Eventually nature will sort it all out and regain the necessary balance all by itself. Human actions start these problems and every time they try to "fix" their mistakes -- in a manner that allows them to continue doing that wrong thing -- they usually only end up creating more problems.
The honey industry just using a scorched earth system to try to contain the outbreak, hopefully there will be a cure because bees making homey is one of the smallest benefits our agricultural industry gets from them.
Varroa has been in the US for 50 years and we still don't have good sources of actual mite resistant bees to purchase. If it was that easy, it wouldn't be an issue anymore. Why even sell non-mite resistant bees if mite resistant bees were an actual thing?
Do bumblebees also get the mite? These are also good pollinators, although they do not produce significant amounts of honey. Here in Britain some growers use bumblebees for pollination crops in greenhouses.
There is a guy in Poland that has developed a vaporiser of formic acid made out of a bottle, piecie od string, pin and floor underlay (such cardboard that is put under flooring panels). Simple and effective. Such contraption used twice a year solves the issue. He uses (lab grade)clean 80% formic acid. Especially when he catches a new bee family he treats it with formic acid vaporiser. Cheap, effective, not harmful to bees nor people.
As a beekeeper this is ridiculous. Varroa mites are a common issue I have been dealing with for a decade now. Strangely it was an Australian you tube video that showed me how to control them. That was about 8-years ago. Varroa are very controllable. You can fumigate them with a common organic acid that occurs often in nature. No need to use dangerous pesticides. Also putting in drone frames concentrates the mites in those frames. When larvae are present remove and feed to chickens they love the high protein treat. Replace and repeat. Inspect drone larvae for varroa treatment if populations of mites are high. Destroying bee colonies to control them is ludicrous. Sounds like something government bureaucrats would do sadly. What government doesn’t seem to know is mites will infect wild bee colonies as well. As wild bees feed the mites will jump from flowers to bees. So long story short you can’t eradicate them.
Hobby Beekeeper in SA. Once I was in one of my hives and I came across a pseudo Scorpion. A really cool little spider that eats the mites as far as I understand. They will even hitch a ride when the colony moves.
Not true. A good beekeeper can see signs that the bee might swarm. The beginning of queen cells at the bottom of frames is a sign the colony is crowded and they want to swarm. At that point once the beekeeper sees the larvi in the cells, they do a 'walk away split'
Wrong: The old queen leaves with some of the bees, founding a new colony. The first hatching young queen kills all her sisters, mates and then lays eggs to keep the old hive alive. Though occasionally some young queen bee also swarms as a second swarm, if there are still enough bees left in the hive.
@@gargoyle7863 In practice it does not work. Even colonies made from swarms (natural or artificial) will die during winter, if not treated correctly against mites. Trust me. Been there, done that.
many dont want to hear about live stock bee hives etc, they only want cumfy offices and good paychecks, they don't understand nor want to understand that curent world is built on livestock bees and fruit trees
It's not easy. It requires a level of micromanagement that most casual hobbyists aren't willing to do. It's very expensive and time consuming (weekly inspections, mite treatments, etc). If you think you're just going to set up a hive and just let them do their thing, expect 90% of your hives to die before you find one that's a strong enough to thrive despite an infestation. A hive's worth of bees costs about $200 - $300 (depending on whether you just buy a few pounds of bees or a NUC (which includes 5 full frames of brood and honey)). My advice...raise chickens. Much easier.
@iguanac6466 or u can set up empty hives when the summer starts and u ll have a few families by the end of the year. Free of charge, you only pay for the housing and some local honey to give them food to install in and make the home
As a bee keeper, i pray over my bees. After the collapse syndrone a few years ago. I came to the realization only the Great Creator of heaven and earth, and all that dwells there in, on, and below. Can protect my bees!
They can kill the mites with oscillic acid it only takes a few minutes and is what beekeepers do in the US after the mites desimated honey bees. The mites are from china and got here in 1980.
Formic acid (evaporated 200ml over ~2 weeks) works great as well and also kills mites within the brood. Oxalic acid (both sublimated as well as dripped) only kills mites sitting on the adult bees.
The common story is that the mites originated in Japan, and that they are commonly found on the Japanese honeybee. They then spread when beekeepers tried to crossbreed with Japanese honeybees and brought the mites back with them. I haven't heard the China theory before.
Correct me if I am wrong, years ago I remember beekeepers used a chemical which killed most insects but had little effect on bees if any, it was used for the moth and its Larvae that eat the wax. The chemical was Chlordane.
As an Aussie who spent 10 years working for the state government I can assure you they are doing the absolute minimum to protect our future
Oh really
So with COVID
All flights weir held aground. The mite is huge. Obviously not.
@@tamariskbeitz303
Don't understand what you are saying ?
From a ADF member we train to stop you from leaving the country
the last 6 years is the most coincidental time in human history. I remember when humans didnt believe in coincidences and investigated thing properly, but now we must believe there are more of them then there are bees on earth...
@@Caleb-lbj From a former ADF member, this is a ridiculous and inaccurate statement
Clarification from a European beekeeper who had to deal with mites since the very beginning:
0. Don't panic! Bees do survive for quite some time after infection. We usually don't do any mite-treatment between December and July/August.
1. Treatment against mites costs about 10€ per hive in one-time initial costs and around 5€ per year for the chemicals. Most beekeepers use organic acids (formic acid and/or oxalic acid). Though especially formic acid is quite corrosive in concentrated form, a few minutes after the application ends there is no more danger. Since both oxalic acid and formic acid are naturally part of honey contamination is (if applied correctly) not a risk. There are other treatments such as hyperthermy (kind of an artificial fever for the hive) or biotechnological methods such as removing all of the brood, which contains most of the mites.
2. Treatment is very effective, if done correctly.
3. Beekeepers, stay away from the real poisons (acarizides). They will lose their effectiveness quickly due to developing resistance, contaminate your beeswax forever and harm the bees health.
4. There are breeding programs for mite-tolerant bees, but real, long-term resistance has not yet been achieved, especially if you don't strictly control queen bee mating. Plus bees are adapted to the location they live in, requiring either re-doing the resistance breeding or the adaption-breeding.
5. No need to do constant checking - Eventually all hives will be infected all the time. You just do your scheduled mite-treatment and continue as normal otherwise.
PS: If you are an Australian bee-keeper and would like to discuss things feel free to comment here or reach out to me directly.
Not exactly an Aussie beekeeper, but regardless, does the queen require any special treatment separate to her hive?
This should be pinned.
I also find it strange that this is trying to worry us about One Sort of bee after pointing out that it's not the only type available. Yeah, the problem with the internet is that much of human nature remains stuck in early childhood: we want answers now as opposed to truth in its time. "The ice caps are melting" turns out to be an "in certain areas" phenomenon, not accurate in measuring the planet's amounts. There are two books out there collecting all the studies on viruses done since the Spanish flu of 1917. Turns out you can't contract them through any form of contagion, period.
But people make up their minds based on which notion enters into their ears first.
Sounds good except the pressure will fall on the wild hives which are untreated. Have you considered neem? There may be a predatory mite that will eat these.
Pretty sure you meant "hyper" (over) thermia rather than hypo (under).
This one seems like it lends itself the least expensive technological solution and a little googling yields the existing youbee system which provides a wax honeycomb foundation layer for every frame that is heated to and held at at 42C, killing the mites and their larvae.
We already had a terrible parasite issue in this country without the varroa mite. Unfortunately our major-party politicians are even harder to get rid of.
😂😂😂
this is the point of political parties. To rob the voice of the people while pretending they enhance that voice.
as a retired beekeeper with 25 hives a few things should be made clear to help this problem.....
1, the use of pesticide strips as recomended....
2 the mite is rather clumsy so we developed an open floor, made of fine st/steel mesh.....the mite often fall off the bee and end up on the ground.....
then they cant get back up to the hive...
My resident hedgehoge used to shuffle under the hives to clean uo the fallen mites.....
It didn't stop the infestation completly but kept it under control..... costs are minimal and no more strong chemicals.....
Try it, what ya gotta loose....
It's not a complete disaster for everyone.....
I would not recommend to use pesticide strips. The pesticides are fat-soluble and thus accumulate in the wax, harming the health of bees, making mites resistant and getting into the honey as well.
Use organic acids such as formic acid, oxalic acid, lactic acid, ...
They require a bit more precautions when administering, but are the far superior in the long term.
Your hedgehog is eating mites? Did you mean hive beetles?
@@MinnesotaBeekeeper I have seen a local hedgehog also often spending time around my hives (Austria). I assume it eats dead/weak bees which are thrown out by the workers.
I have read " in some hives the Queen Bee will stop laying for ten , twelve , fourteen days to break the varroa mite cycle "
.... so there is a natural defence statergy
.... ? Removing the Queen and establishing a new colony .... ? ? ? Letting the current colony just deal with the mite ... ???
That sounds like you genetically train the mites that only the smart and better climbing ones survive and just in a few hundred generations thay will probably addept in just a few years
The varroa came in on timber shipment through the Port of Newcastle (AU) from the Port of Nelson (NZ). The authorities covered up this information to prevent a class action lawsuit against the Federal Government of Australia. The Federal Government of Australia wanted the varroa mite introduced into the country so they could complete an amended quarantine-free trade agreement with New Zealand called "Second Protocol". Varroa was a deal breaker in that agreement. When varroa was discovered in Australia, the agreement had been in talks for over 10 years at that point. The "Second Protocol" was signed and ratified only 13 months later in August 2023. Not such a coincidence...
Oh GOSH!!! What an age we're living in!!! Truth, truth, and more truth!!😵💫🥸🤯🤯🤯
@@larkfeast THANK YOU!!! This absolutely confirms ALL suspicions!!
We had varoa around for as long as iv been into bees 20 years
Same as when you buy frozen peas marked on the pack as from NZ...but actually from CCP
@@az-yq3rk I'm in Australia. That's exactly the reason I buy ONLY Australian grown. I noticed this type of message on packaging years ago. I'd ring the company and ask where the food was actually grown.
Now there's times when I have to look hard and deep to find a phone number. If I can't find a way to contact a company then I think that's just too bad and I won't buy the product.
I ring companies and tell them I won't buy their product if it's grown in China. I have absolutely nothing against the Chinese people, the government or otherwise, but I know that terrible chemicals are used in the growing of food in that heavily populated country.
I just go without that product.
I Helped a bee out of a spiders web once ...the spider was there but i though your not gonna have this little lady today so i pulled her out off the web and she stayed with me for a moment to fix herself up abit then she flew away ...precious little thing ....Gods gift to man
Yes, they are grateful little things. I did the same once when I was swimming at the beach, poor little thing was clinging to life to a piece of wood & must have been exhausted. I took him on my hand back to shore and put some water nearby. I’m allergic to bees so it was a risk but no sting thank goodness
*Gods gift to man
*NATURE'S GIFT TO Man*
@@cleft_3000try getting rid of your over-sensitivity to bees, by eating our natural diet which is only raw sweet fruits preferably tropical.
Ask me for more information.
and because you denied the spider it's nutrition, it died...and failed to kill the Dwarf Ransom Bee-tle that later landed on it's web, and sadly it ended up attacking multiple bee colonies and wiped out 10 million bees
I found a worker bee close to death and picked him up put him on a plate with sugar water, he lived at the front door for 3 days then passed ❤
I think this is being done deliberately. The timing is spot on with all the other nefarious things happening.
Dead right, all part of the depopulation plan.
I agree Chinese and Americans brought it here to NZ. Globalism was a huge mistake.
YEP!!!
Yep
🐝💔😢🎯💯👍👏👏👏❤️❤️❤️
Sounds like a WEF action item.
eff the WEF frankly.
EXACTLY
🐝💔😢🎯💯👍👏👏👏❤️❤️❤️
While I agree it could be, the WEF and other such dark entities have their fingers in many things...please consider the sheer amount of stupidity within the work force system.
Based on limited experiences with management and higher ups in the work force...it seems to me the higher one is in the work force, the stupider you are (generally speaking).
One case in point: I used to volunteer at the Oncology carpark at a large Brisbane hospital, making life a little less stressful for cancer patients and family upon their visits.
Though my interactions with staff were minimal, I noticed a trend...ground staff knew how to do their job, and do it well...thier knowledge came from experience....but anything above that level of occupation, and the folks in those positions had little understanding on how to efficiently run the floor, though of course, they were deluded in thinking they knew better...a side affect of being higher up than others perhaps.
And then there was a rare visit from some high up grand pubar nurse or something, I never found out her actual title...she decided that parking in the ambulance bay, which of course , was right outside the main entrance, was the best place to park her car. I actually confronted her respectfully about this is for the ambulances only. She didn't see her parking in that bay was a problem for the efficient running of the oncology department.
Then there was the head bloke who looked after all the oncology departments for the state of QLD...he went one better and parked his car across three bays in the visitor carpark...he consciously chose to do this instead of parking, at least, in one single bay...as the visitor carpart was strictly designated for cancer patients and family,as parking in that section of the city was extremely limited, thus why one intelligent person higher up, made sure there was a designated carpark for patients.
Back to the bee fiasco...fearfully avoiding taking responsibility for one's mistakes, sadly, is a all too common human weakness, regardess of social standing or position...thus another reason the bee infection could have been a typicla managerial beaurocracy error, and not a WEF intentional plan.
Laws changed in 2021 allowing up to 3% of the total population of a lab to escape. Reports were released showed that a lab studying modified mosquitos that encephalitis, West Nile and other diseases in the US followed.🤯The powers that be are also trying to bolster their climate disaster declaration scenarios to control the masses.
There is no such thing! They are called cycles. Remember hearing, it's a 100 year storm? Well, the cores actually prove cycles!
In the 1990s, manipulations of the climate began and decades of ice data was lost. But they have the originals!
The answer has always been conservation, wildlife, forest, agricultural conservation and replenishment.
The powers that be stopped following Yehovah's rules of the land in the 40s and 50s. And now we see the result, non-nutrishous food and the death of once luscious farmlands. Including our physical bodies as well. You are what you eat.
If we return to Yehovah and His laws and statues, And He will be our God. and He will provide fruitful lands to His faithful.
A story on how it really got into the area of NSW would be a really interesting story.
Diamond Princess?
No the people that make sure the bees bought in from overseas at the port in Newcastle weren't doing their job properly. I live in the red zone and two years after 1st detection, there hasn't been any bees seen. We normally have bees throughout our clover, but last year there was one or two and this year there has been none seen. I am having to pollinate my vegetable garden myself and I had to do it last year as well. I am thinking of getting our native stingless bees.
Probably peta, they destroyed hundreds of bee hives in wa because it's better to be dead than enslaved.
Bought in to NSW deliberately to affect food crops, has been up in far northern Australia for quite some time(2005ish)Came from Papua New Guinea.
US military movements is my guess.
I worked on a farm in the far north east of NSW Australia near Lismore for around 20y. We introduce native bee hives not long after converting to organics and while it took a little while we reached a point where I could see that we would be able to split enough hives to adequately pollinate all of the fruit trees. At first I was worried that the native bees wouldn't pollinate non native trees but after working in the trees for long enough around flowing I observed the tiny guys landing on the flowers and doing what I assume bees do best. Unfortunately they only produce a small amount of honey but it is absolutely delicious in my opinion. Oh and the wax is equally as nice, it has such a lovely aroma.
I'm a bee keeper in Ireland , I don't treat my bees for varroa with any chemicals, I disturb the brood as little as possible for the cluster to be able to maintain the core temperature as high as possible .
During a feed shortage I give sugar syrup or fondant with raw garlic and onion added , a tip I got from a Latvian bee keeper . Very little online regards onion/garlic varroa research . I just knock up syrup/fondant till it stinks of garlic and onion and the bees savage the stuff all that's left is the hard skin of the garlic.
This is from a person in Bulgaria who lives in a small town with lots of farming around. I myself am not a farmer, but I have had dealings with different farming. From there, I also know that Lavender is a very strong insect repellant, except for bees, which love that stuff. A quick google search shows that lavender is effective against the mites, and I am suggesting dropping a handful bouquet of lavender in the hive. Try with one, as we do not really know if long exposure to it to the bees would be harmful or not, or how it would affect the honey.
So what are your mite washes? The core is held only during the winter.
@@MinnesotaBeekeeper I don't do washes , totally treatment free other than using garlic and onion in syrup/fondant when nectar scarce
What about the honey then? I imagine that the whole hive + harvested honey smells or tastes like garlic?
@@einname9986 I wouldn't think so. It takes an awful lot of garlic to infuse even a small jar of honey (plus weeks to months of time) to actually make the honey taste and smell of garlic. The bees would have to be eating nothing but garlic for the entire time to actually infuse the flavor into it. Just feeding them a little here and there when flower nectar is scarce isn't very likely going to effect the taste of the honey.
As an Australian Im pissed that someone has clearly brought this mite with them from overseas....how else does it get here?
Bought in deliberately
it came in a shipping container
btw thats how fire ants got here as well, the problem is with the way funding is allocated for these problems, the liberals and labor don't want to set up a funding structure to eliminates these pets , the nationals have tried to explain , but its better to build a new road in Sydney that gets you millions of votes than to set up a fund for pet eradication. the way the funding works now is once it becomes a problem then funding is given.
the government did it on purpose
It's been here for 20 odd years at least.
Ive been working in my backyard all summer since retiring and been watching Honey Bees coming & going from my plants. With the drought in central Texas, the plants haven't been producing flowers so I began feeding them and love sitting back and watching so many bees coming to my house and imagining the bees returning to their hive amd dancing around telling the others where to find nector
NEVER feed honey to bees (+ if you are not a beekeeper, don't feed sugar either)
Honey (especially the cheap one with unclear or mixed origin) often contains pathogens (e.g. American Foulbrood) that can quickly kill the hives and spread to other, not yet infected hives, causing massive financial harm to beekeepers. In Europe if we find any infection of AFB all bees have to be killed or, if they are still strong enough, removed from the hive and put in a dark and cold location without food to purge the disease from their bodies. All of the equipment has to be either burnt on site or sterilized using sodium hydroxide, a highly corrosive substance. All bees in a radius of 3 kilometers have to be checked for the disease and, if found to be sick treated as described above. Moving any bees within that radius will be banned for months (so no selling of colonies or queens, no moving queens to mating apiaries and no moving bees to crops where they can forage for nectar).
So NEVER EVER EVER feed honey to bees.
Do not feed sugar to bees either - Beekeepers know when and how to feed their bees. Giving sugar might contaminate the honey and decrease its quality, might lead to bees fighting to their death for the food. Sugar syrup might even be directly poisonous to bees as it can contain hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (It is generated when sugar is getting too hot and it is toxic to bees)
NEVER feed honey to bees (+ if you are not a beekeeper, don't feed sugar either)
Honey (especially the cheap one with unclear or mixed origin) often contains pathogens (e.g. American Foulbrood) that can quickly kill the hives and spread to other, not yet infected hives, causing massive financial harm to beekeepers. In Europe if we find any infection of AFB all bees have to be killed or, if they are still strong enough, removed from the hive and put in a dark and cold location without food to purge the disease from their bodies. All of the equipment has to be either burnt on site or sterilized using sodium hydroxide, a highly corrosive substance. All bees in a radius of 3 kilometers have to be checked for the disease and, if found to be sick treated as described above. Moving any bees within that radius will be banned for months (so no selling of colonies or queens, no moving queens to mating apiaries and no moving bees to crops where they can forage for nectar).
So NEVER EVER EVER feed honey to bees.
Do not feed sugar to bees either - Beekeepers know when and how to feed their bees. Giving sugar might contaminate the honey and decrease its quality, might lead to bees fighting to their death for the food. Sugar syrup might even be directly poisonous to bees as it can contain hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (It is generated when sugar is getting too hot and it is toxic to bees)!
Aren’t a lot of the wild bees in Texas “killer bees”?
@n8errific no clue. Maybe these weren't wild bees. Either way they never shown any aggressive behavior towards me, the dogs or the cat that hangs around.
Will miss them during our winter month is south Central Texas
@@n8errific Not sure about "killer bees", but usually bees (and wasps as well) will not be aggressive as long as you don't get near their nest and don't attack them. They only attack if they feel threatened.
Oxalic acid/glycerin extended release strips have been shown to be very effective in stopping varroa mites. If you make them yourselves, which is easy to do, the cost is around $2 per hive per treatment, With 2 to 4 treatments per year.
See Randy Oliver at Scientific Beekeeping.
Another solution: Dripping oxalic acid solution mixed with sugar, essential oils and water onto the bees. Costs probably much less (though it only works when there is no capped brood)
Also possible: Sublimating oxalic acid within the hive. (also only works when there is no brood or has to be repeated a few times to get all mites)
Since you should switch between two or more treatment options to avoid mites getting resistant use formic acid evaporation in summer and oxalic acid in winter, when there is no capped brood (or cause artificial brood break if you have no summer)
@@einname9986
It's not really clear that one has to worry about the mites becoming resistant to oxalic acid. Apparently oxalic acid might work by harming the feet of the mites. In any case I rather doubt that changing the delivery method would affect the resistance question.
The extended release strips are quick and easy to put in. And they have been very effective.
@@davegaetano7118 delivery method probably does not change resistance problem, but I wrote about formic acid evaporation, which also kills mites inside the brood.
I heard about oxalic acid working because bees become toxic for mites. Would make more sense since oxalic acid solution mixed with sugar dripped onto bees is probably quickly eaten by the worker bees, so mites will not get in contact with oxalic acid.
I am the laziest man I know and the strips seem like a great idea. I have looked into making them myself but they seem like a pain in the ass. In Queensland we dont get too cold and brood breaks are non existent. Do screened bottom boards work well? I have seen mesh ones but the bees usually propolise them up.
@@poison2433
i've never used a screened bottom board.
It's not difficult at all to make the extended release strips. Especially if you make a big batch that will last for a year or two. (I refrigerate the extra sponge strips in Ziploc bags, but I don't know if the refrigeration is needed.)
One thing that helps a lot is to have a couple of towels under the pan that the Swedish sponges are in. The towels act as insulation, giving the sponges much more time to soak up the liquid before it cools and solidifies. After pouring the liquid mix of glycerin and oxalic acid onto the sponges in the pan, put more towels on top for more insulation.
Any extra mix can be put into a container and saved for next time.
no mites detected in millions of hives but they killed them all anyway---theres a sinister reason
Of course.
Like the hokey cow destruction program in the UK back a decade or two. Guess who from the Imperial College recommended that over-reaction.
As a beekeeper its one of the most important things to teach other beekeepers. Treat for the mites or be willing to replace your bees far more often. I had a failed treatment last year and lost 80% of my hives. This year I've hit them hard and so far so good. I don't check for mites I just treat for them with OA(Oxalic Acid).
Neonicotinoid pesticides commonly found in agricultural areas kill bees and hurt their ability to reproduce, two separate large-scale studies confirmed for the first time Thursday.
The two studies - one that examined honeybees in Canada and the other that looked at three bee species in the United Kingdom, Germany and Hungary - were the first large-scale investigations to test the popular agrochemicals influence on bees in real world settings.The work also turns many preconceived notions about bees and pesticides on their heads.
While many studies had connected neonicotinoids - a common class of insecticides derived from nicotine - to bee deaths in the past, few studies had examined how much pesticide is needed to harm bees or how long the exposure must take. Critics argued previous scientific studies used unrealistic quantities of pesticides in their experiments.
The new studies say the environmental levels of neonicotinoids surrounding farms do not obliterate bee colonies outright, but instead kill them over extended periods of time. The pesticides also threaten bee queens in particular - which means colonies have lower reproductive rates.
What part of the world you live? Dang I thought running some beehives wouldn’t be that hard but taking a hit like that sounds super costly in both time and maybe $$
@@ashtongaeta2581 Also lobby for the growers to stop using chemicals as pesticides. Neonicotinoid pesticides commonly found in agricultural areas kill bees and hurt their ability to reproduce, two separate large-scale studies confirmed for the first time Thursday.
The two studies - one that examined honeybees in Canada and the other that looked at three bee species in the United Kingdom, Germany and Hungary - were the first large-scale investigations to test the popular agrochemicals influence on bees in real world settings.The work also turns many preconceived notions about bees and pesticides on their heads.
While many studies had connected neonicotinoids - a common class of insecticides derived from nicotine - to bee deaths in the past, few studies had examined how much pesticide is needed to harm bees or how long the exposure must take. Critics argued previous scientific studies used unrealistic quantities of pesticides in their experiments.
I had the same senario this year. Did the same as you. san luis obispo, california
I thought those little bee mites looked like bed bugs. I know they're not, hopefully, but my ears perked up when you mentioned heating an area to 104 degrees Fahrenheit in an effort to control Australia's mite problem is also one of the same solutions to eradicate bed bugs, maybe the best solution, imo..
Bees are perhaps the important thing to human food production.
its worse Beeze going down and windmill farms killing off bird life.
not just to humans, they are important to every ecosystem they belong to, they help everyone and everything around them, they are precious
@@homelessEh
Accordingvto US statistics, House cats are several orders of magnitude worse than wind turbines. House cats clock in at 2,400,000,000 dead birds followed by glass windows at 600 million, vehicles at 214 million, poisons at 21million and somewhere down the list we see wind turbines at 250.000.
We could build a thousand times as many wind turbines and would still just scratch 10% of the deaths that House cats cause.
@@homelessEh
Wind turbines aren't nearly as bad vehicles, power lines, windows or over 2 times worse than anything else combined, domesticated cats.
@@carstekochNo no, you mean domesticated cats. A house cat doesn't leave the house. Hence the name.
Unfortunately, our reliance one one single species of honey bee worldwide was caused by us. There used to be more than enough native pollinators everywhere to, but because humans love sweet sugary stuff, Bees were introduced where the shouldn't be and with the aide of pesticides and poor practices of farmers... native pollinators were pushed out.
Not necessarily, I'm not sure about Australia, but here in the PNW there are many, many species of native bees that are responsible for pollinating so many of our orchards, fruits & vegetables. But these are "solitary bees", they don't form colonies like the European Honey Bee & they don't make honey. Except for our many species of native Bumblebees & they do form colonies & make small "honey pots". But we have been promoting our native bee populations & the results are good. Give them the right habitat, forage throughout the year & nesting places, they can be a sure bet in the wake of the awful collapse of honey bee colonies. Natives, after all, are NATIVE, the beloved Honey Bee is from Europe.
@@pennyesplin4648 Beware that some bumblebees are said to also get mites (though I have no sources for it, just heard it from other beekeepers)
You're missing a bigger point friend, monoculture in farms. Stimulates one kind of bee while forcing other bees to migrate or die out.
There are over 1650 known native bee species and subspecies in Australia some are very pretty with an irridecent backside in a very bright blue such as the Blue Banksia bee then there is the Blue Banded Bee with the males and females differentiated with the number of stripes Males five stripes females four stripes and there are plenty of native pollinators including moths and butterflys
@mugennojin3513 "poor practices of farmers..." didn't miss anything
Ain’t nothing like an apocalypse caused by eradication of food crops……..
the commercial bees and dependend food crops aint going away, there are working treatments and the mites simply raise cost .. its some wild bee species which will be eradicated, but nature will always adapt ... either via resistant bee species or with other insect/plant species taking the gaps being created.
people need to stop peeing their pants other the loss of species, that happened long before humans came around and just opens new windows for new species emerging.
never going to happen. gmo grops are a thing
I'm starving to see a well written story on that...
bees aren't the only pollinators, so even if they were all wiped out (not likely) it wouldn't lead to an eradication of food crops, just a reduction, unless the remaining pollinators saw population increases. Not to understate the problem, since many other pollinators are also under pressure due to climate change and loss of habitat.
One growing business is for farmers to rent ducks as pest control , plus you get eggs. Lobby for the outlaw of chemicals insecticides. Neonicotinoid pesticides commonly found in agricultural areas kill bees and hurt their ability to reproduce, two separate large-scale studies confirmed for the first time Thursday.
The two studies - one that examined honeybees in Canada and the other that looked at three bee species in the United Kingdom, Germany and Hungary - were the first large-scale investigations to test the popular agrochemicals influence on bees in real world settings.The work also turns many preconceived notions about bees and pesticides on their heads.
While many studies had connected neonicotinoids - a common class of insecticides derived from nicotine - to bee deaths in the past, few studies had examined how much pesticide is needed to harm bees or how long the exposure must take. Critics argued previous scientific studies used unrealistic quantities of pesticides in their experiments.
We’re in NSW and our hives get inspected twice per week. No signs of mites. Had independent lab testing and still no mites. We already have an injunction in place, with our solicitor, in case we get contacted.
Sorry to break the news to you, but at some point the mites will reach your colonies as well.
I am a european bee-keeper who had to deal with mites since the very beginning. If you would like to discuss things around treatment, ... and learn how we do it here feel free to comment below or reach out to me directly.
@ I have no doubt that we will see them eventually. we are on the lookout twice per week and so far no problems. Right now we are preemptively treating with Formic acid and apitraz. We also use periodic powdered sugar treatments and have seen good progress. We are fully off grid for 12 years now and live a fair distance from civilization. What are you using to treat in Europe?
@@VividMotorsportsmost will use oxalic acid or a oxalic/formic acid combination, there are also apivar strips and treatments like apiguard that use thymol treatment. Oxalic is popular, but for best results to administer during a brood break (for me my bees are naturally broodless around Early December). This way there are no mites hiding under cappings. Queens can also be caged to induce a brood break. Outside of broodless periods I use varromed (oxalic/formic) if required, can use weekly over a period of brood cycles. Oxalic can be administered by either vaporisation or made into a syrup and trickled over the bees.
@@VividMotorsports I did write quite a long reply, but somehow it does not appear here.
So a quick summary as I don't want to write everything again:
Treatment I do is formic acid twice in summer (after honey harvest and in September), using Nassenheider Evaporator (recommended as little harm to bees + brood and works with temperatures up to 35°C - other methods only work in colder weather and/or cause damage to brood/queen) plus 1 oxalic acid solution treatment in winter.
Other methods used in europe, but not by me:
Total brood removal, hyperthermy, sublimation of oxalic acid, dripping oxalic acid + formic-acid mix, Thymol, ...
DO NOT USE APITRAZ/COUMAPHOS/... (they are fat soluble, toxic and will accumulate in the wax, harm bees long-term and mites will get resistant). In Europe we stopped using it decades ago but wax is still contaminated.
Plus there is no need to treat when you don't yet have mites. Wait until they arrive, check regularly if you have some (dead mites will fall down. Put tray covered by mesh on bottom board, so you see any mites that fell off. If no tray is there bees or ants will remove fallen mites. Number of mites fallen off can be used as approximation on how bad hives are affected) and only then treat against them. Bees survive at least half a year without treatment (in Europe we don't treat between December and August to avoid contamination of honey).
Any further questions?
@@VividMotorsports If you'd like to chat via zoom or something we could also do that. I'd also be interested in how beekeeping works in Australia - I assume a lot different than in Austria, where I live
UK beekeeper here.
yep. these mites are a pain. But we do know how to manage the pest, but it does mean that all honey bees you ever see now are kept by humans.
honeybees can NOT survive in the wild for more than about 3 years without human intervention once infested.
fortunately our honeybees are not the world's top food crop pollinator. They only make up about 4% in reality. Mankind would not starve without honeybees to pollinate crops. Common misconcpetion.
Interesting vid and well presented. 👍🏻🇬🇧
Northern US Beekeeper here. We have many feral colonies that do fine with mites year after year. I am tracking one such tree-bound colony. What kills them is late-season swarms. We also have commercial beeks that are treatment free. See Ross Conrad. 1/3 of the food we eat is Apis pollinated. We would not starve but many of the nuts and fruits and spices we love would get so expensive and/or scarce that we would bee like the Irish and subsist on potatoes and cabbage. jk. No thank you. You like almonds?? say good by to them if not for Apis
Seems a lot of problems with food supplies lately. Strange.
The result of Government ignorance & greed.
....what about bee-keepers ignorance and greed?!
@@walteredstates Ain't the beekeepers, it's the fucking government trying to starve us.
It’s funny how since the US have put bases around Australia that strange viruses and such have come into the country. We were all taught that due to its geographic location Australia was extremely unlikely to have these foreign issues. If authorities incinerated all of the European bee hives in a 100 kilometre radius (we don’t use miles and inches here) then wouldn’t the mites die thereby avoiding the already problematic chemical treatment. This sounds like a deliberate failure by our government to me. If we lost the European bees we would only lose the honey. There are plenty of insects that existed here way before the honey bee was introduced that will keep on pollinating the native flora.
The mites would still exist in the feral honeybee colonies.
Would you be making a reference tp Pine Gap by any chance.
There's not a lot of bees where I live so in order to pollinate my vegetable garden, I use feathers in individually marked sandwich bags
I use cotton-tip swabs and/or small paint brushes for hand pollination. Works for smaller gardens, but the process can be impossibly time consuming and impractical for much larger veggie gardens and certainly not viable solution for pollinating crops.
However, bees are not the only pollinators. There are many beneficial flowers that can be companion planted to attract not only bees but also other pollinators -- as well plants that will help deter pests and even those that can be planted farther away as decoys to attract pests because pests prefer them over the veggie garden when given a choice. All of those used in combination is the most beneficial.
Plus, simply placing a left over watermelon rinds or spoiled, split open fruit on top of the ground will also attract many types of pollinators -- bees, flies, butterflies, etc. -- and doesn't require watering, fertilizing or weeding and the rind or fruit can be composted afterwards.
As a UK beekeeper, the sight of those hives killed off due to varroa was shocking and sad. Over here we manage the impact of varroa during brood breaks with oxalic acid treatment in winter, and if necessary by isolating the queen at other times of the year, I’ve never had to treat in summer (oxalic acid sublimation and dribble). Some use pesticides at the end of summer. There’s also drone brood removal, as the mite’s reported to prefer these cells. This seemed to be a serious overreaction.
Lol idk why I'm just realizing he keeps his mouth covered to sell the illusion that it's his voice. The exaggerated enunciations in his visual performance helps sell the illusion as well, bravo
It looks totally cheesy.
I thought it was painfully obvious but ok
@@cody.6609 I usually put UA-cam on listen mode so I've never seen it
The Voice is Horrible.
Painful.
/
There are about a dozen native bees that are unaffected. They are as effective at polinating as the European bees. They are not as commercial as they don't produce commercially viable quantities of honey.
Sadly the native bees go about in roo skins, smoking wattle & renaming all the rocks - as they've been here for longer than they have the numbers to count. (But it is a long time.) Many, many years...
props on your research for this, was stoked to see natives mentioned and flies are huge pollinators, very underestimated how much they actually do
Ever since he started showing himself as he is narrating; his videos feel...I don't know like more genuine.
i don't like it at all. and the crap figgiting table items is irritating
@@halburd1 totally agree
He should do a face reveal
@@halburd1 You can easily just tab out and listen without looking.
The person shown is not the narrator
The WEF did this
Man your town and locale pronunciations are spot on, good work mate!
Except for Melbourne. He didn't pronounce Melbourne correctly. Americans never do. I suspect it's genetic
hmmm not so much , better than some,
but most place names were said a bit weird - Def not a 'native' Aussie speaker
Another reason to have offshore quarantine 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️😠
the likelihood is that it was introduced as a deliberate attack
👍💯
Utter nonsence. It was neglegence - failure to sustain inspection of all imports.
@@davidminer7233 It's always 'negligence' isn't it?
Well said. I am an beekeeper and I agree with your doccumentary. Keep up the good work!
19:05 in Texas We sometimes kill a wild hog and leave it in the field. The green flies come in and help pollinate the crops.
Win win
@@carolannroberts Not for the hog...lol
Any excuse to engineer a world-wide famine.
So, what, we just let these incredibly destructive parasites roam free and destroy even more bee colonies- domesticated and otherwise? Especially in environments like Australia where we didn't even have the kind of bees that they came over with in the first place.
I wouldn't put ANYthing past them at this point.
Edit 1mo later: The above was almost tongue in cheek, but after seeing the 1hr40min long Tucker Carlson interview of an _average_ nobody DC attorney named Passantino, who represented a Cassidy Hutchinson before the Democrat led J6 Committee & how Democrats (& RINO female version of Scar from Lion King, LIz Cheney & The View Alyssa Farrah) were willing to play out a fantastically, _bizarrely_ convoluted plot just to make Hutchinson's later lies seem plausible AND the fact Democrats & Cheney were willing to _ruin_ Passantino's career & LIFE in order to do so.... _NEVER AGAIN will I put ANYthing past Democrats, forEVER at this point). Go listen for yourself, it's BEYOND egregious, it's _downright EVIL_ & IF it had succeeded??????? The results would truly have been comparatively nothing more than a thorn in Trump's paw to everything else he was facing, as it were.
Truth bomb!
@@anonygrazer3234They are Satanists. It's what they do. Lies, death, destruction.
Ok wrap another layer of tin foil around your pillow
You bring the temperature of the bees down to freezing and have them on screen and the mites will die and fall off through the screen and the bees can be resurrected I don't remember the temperature but this technique is used in Siberia Russian friend told me this at work.
Never heard of that.
But another option: Hyperthermy, kind of an artificial fever. You heat up the bees plus their brood to a certain temperature. The bees survive, the mites don't. (Though I've never tried that - I stick with the tried method of organic acids)
@@einname9986 Hypothermy means low temperature, not high. That would be hyperthermia.
Nope. Even if it did work the time investment would be impossible.
@@Graham_Wideman Thanks, fixed that. English is a foreign language so somehow my brain has remembered a wrong translation (though the translation from german is really straightforward ^^)
As a pest controller in the affected are ot was a wild time. When the order to kill all wild hive that we found come down and was put into affect the amount of wild Karen's that come out of the wood work was insane
It's always the Karen's.....about EVERYTHING....insufferable liberal women....
Karen's kno best, no need to ask them, they'll tell u - loudly
Miserable bee-killer.
Watching from the infected New South Wales 🐝🐝🐝
If there is one thing I have noticed in beekeeping, its that people are lazy and wont do the bare minimum a lot of the time or they will cut corners. Then they will incur losses on a greater scale and then complain about it and seek sympathy.
Unfortunate reality is that its so easy to beekeep when things are good and it gives people the arrogance to half ass.
Your are absolutely correct sir. I've seen it time and time again.
@@MinnesotaBeekeeper My favorite question: When was your last mite check? Usually theres never a reply on reddit.
@@Alan-fv1or It is a valid strategy to not do mite checks and just follow the treatment plan. If you have lots of colonies it becomes quite a lot of additional work to do regular mite checks (beekeeping in most cases is not really profitable anyway, so regularly checking for mites is often just a cost that you have to cut, especially if you don't do it as a hobby but as a job).
If you have a working treatment plan adding mite checks are not really necessary either, because the only benefit it might bring is to be able to omit a treatment (which is usually cheap, requires little work and does little harm to the bees)
Before varroa invaded, beekeeping WAS easy. Now it seems near impossible without micromanaging all your hives. It is not a hobby for the casual who just likes having honeybees (or wants an easy ag exemption). I have an older friend who grew up on an apiary and she's shocked when I tell her what's required to keep hives alive nowadays.
In recent years, a predatory mite has been flagged as being particularly promising to control the Varroa, bringing hope to beekeepers. This beneficial mite, called Stratiolaelaps scimitus, has been shown to attack and feed upon the Varroa in the laboratory.
We've been through the cane toad debacle here in Australia, so we'll need to do about 20 years of tests on that!
@VanillaMacaron551 first thing I bet a lot of people thought.
Laboratory != real world.
Example:
80% Alcohol (Ethanol) is shown to kill all kinds of pathogens in the laboratory. In the real world it just tastes gross and makes you drunk.
@@einname9986 Most of the time, nothing in the laboratory is the same as in the real world. For example: They use highly concentrates and extractions instead of using the actual plant and administer extremely high dosages impossible to consume then proclaim "this food is dangerous and should be banned or consumption restricted." Or, they only test an additive added to a single food being fed in normal quantities for a short time and proclaim "this is safe" but then add it to ALL foods so people are forced to consume far more massive amounts of it and they do so far longer so end up with cancer or other health issues.
Maybe, but who’s to say it won’t start feeding on a different organism or on the bees themselves?
I planted a part of my yard into a native area. It is now a registered Monarch Waystation as I have the full life cycle. Since then I also have so many other insects and birds. I went from a few to seeing up to 50 birds at a go in my little yard. Species I had never seen in my area before. Every little bit counts. Added benefit is no lawn to spend countless hours and money on. Mow once a year and done. Needless to say my gardens never suffer from lack of pollination now.
Good on you - for doing, and telling!
Every little bit counts, indeed, and inspiring individuals to worry about their own ' little ' circle of influence/garden/farm is what we need, and can be very powerful, if taken up by enough people. Good incentive to make our backyard more insect and bird friend;y!
If we humans didn’t destroy all other insects with our pesticides, the issue would be less.
Including destroying ourselves. Pesticides.
@@tommmmiii The European Honey Bees causes more destruction to native insects than pesticides.
Those other insects include many who are a danger/bother to humans.
@@davidminer7233maybe, just maybe, an ecosystem needs all insects. Because if you lose one species, you might end up losing another one because of it. And before you know it, flowers aren’t pollinated. And the system collapses
I understand why you like your anonymity and want to keep it. You are a very busy person!! You have so many channels to narrate that you don't have time for dealing with so many distraction plus with having all those channels comes the idea that you make a lot of money from these videos... and here comes all the people begging for a handout!! My niece plays music at a lot of events and has written some books and all of a sudden everyone thinks she's wealthy!! She and her husband have day jobs and it barely pays the bills... By the way to me it is kind of like an Easter egg hunt to locate your channels because I love the way you tell the stories and present the facts in them and it is rewarding to find your channels. Keep up the good work!!
I was still living in Tasmania when the Hobartians started putting backpacks on the bees, very clever initiative....live in Victoria now out in a beautiful rural zone. Thanks so much, love your uploads 😊
What on earth are you talking about?
@@lolcatz88 what are you asking?
Interesting! What kind of "backpacks"? For what purpose?
This is like when Chairman Mao had all the "Tree Sparrows" killed off because the thought that they were eating too much of the grain crops.
BUT, it began an infestation of all the insects like grasshoppers that did way more damage.
Turns out, the sparrows were keeping all those destructive insects in check and that sparrow's food intake was less than one third grains and over two thirds insects.
China had to import sparrows from Russia to try and fix the problem which took about 3 years to rectify.
A Chinese biologist warned the Mao government about what would happen and they put him in prison.
Some of the areas of China also knew that this was an insane order and didn't kill any sparrows in their provinces.
Australia has had other idiotic environmental disasters like the importing of Emus and a particular species of frogs and rabbits.
Afterward, even the attempted eradication of the invasive species turned into a disaster.
This is what happens when you don't locally source your bees.
Aussie bees make like 500gm of honey a year which sells for a few thousand. We have blue native bees too, instead of yellow. But the main native bees look like black flies and are stingless.
The best thing to use is calcium oxalate in a smoker or a burner it kills the mites almost instantly within 12 hours I had almost 200 mites drop onto my bottom board after the fourth smoking there was maybe four or five
Anyone worried about government spending just realise bee keeping is a prefered profession for returned servicemen.
Chinese would have brought it into Australia. They have no regard for customs border control and quarantine regulations!
Yes, someone did the same in NZ
They said it was a breeder importing queens.
Maybe, but I doubt it ... this is done on purpose by the controllers
Suggestion: I like the purple hive experiment idea using camera monitoring, what if they were to equip a laser or micro jet chemical spray nozzle to zap the mite on any infected bee recognised entering or leaving the hive, this could be setup as a standardised mobile unit that could be transferred and just clipped into place of entrance from hive to hive as the mite problems are eradicated in each zone or hive.
This should not require much power for remote areas (battery & Panel maybe), and could drastically reduce chemical usage to a bear minimum or zero if using a few low intensity lasers instead of chemicals.
Let me know if this idea ever takes off (if it hasn’t already been done), good info, cheers.
OR you could just learn about how nature works and achieve bee welfare by implementing methods and mechanisms that have been honed over gazillions of years of evolution....
which take careful observation and implementation and a genuine love for bees and their wellbeing - at least slightly outweighing the greed factor
...just saying...😉
Im near the nsw border. A few years ago someone killed the bee's, thats the report we got, many hives were attacked
Why did i think Bill Gates would be mentioned
Miterosoft
Bill Gatrs planned it.
Parasite ?
Hmmm.. good question ??🤔 Maybe they're trying to kill us all with biological warfare, gene splicing, g.m.o's, pesticides, plastics, chemtrails, flouride, heavy metals, and electromagnetic radiation. But these are just "conspiracy theories" Heavily factually evidenced, conspiracy theories.😅
Because you didnt notice the hat - Steve is batting for the wrong team these daze 😔
Sounds like the thing to do with the smart hives is to detect the mite, then automatically increase the temp to 104 for whatever time is needed, then turn off the heater.
This was very interesting. I've heard about the mites from a friend with hives but not the deep dive you did. Great job.
I like this channel, and I hit the Subscribe button!! Also the anonymous thing is cool!! 💯
This is the second episode i have watched on your channel. I subscribed.
Man I adore your hard work. I like any single video you post and I have a wish. Plz when you use imperial units have a subtitle in international units too. Many watchers watch utube videos late at night and it kinda sucks to use my inner calculator that late. Feet meter inches galons . It's a mess. Outside US people might wonna enjoy your videos and I'm one of them
Poor soul, having to use your brain?
@@akula9713right? What a crybaby
Seriously, everyone everywhere should learn and know how to use and convert between all units of measure. Those who work in health, many industries, and various sciences are required to do so. Regardless, there are plenty of calculators and tables which will do the work instead. The very idea of converting to a single unit of measure worldwide is only dumbing down future generations even further. What's next? A single language? A single culture?
Howdy from Temple, Texas, USA!
Best video on the topic that I have seen
Why should he? Because YOU said so? Get lost!
Sadly not even close. The guy is just reading statistics and has no actually knowledge on the subject.
@@corvid1968 Eh?
@@MinnesotaBeekeeper If you would make a better video I will watch it
@@corvid1968 ??
The more I watch videos like yours mate the more I realise how bad my own are! I better learn a few more tricks! Great video! Fascinating, Andre
💔😢 I have no words for how heartbreaking this is. (Well...maybe just a thought or two...I always planted zinnias among my vegetable plants to attract bees. Watching a bee at work visiting the flowers is amazing. One early morning the temperature had dropped quickly and I found a handful of bees curled up in the raspberry hedge...as soon as the sun warmed them and the temp came up to 55+F they flew off.) Thanks for your video.
The worrying thing that nobody is talking about is the massive reduction in general flying insects. Anyone 40-50 years old like myself will remember 20-30 years ago the time we spent cleaning bugs off our windshields. This just has almost stopped happening now. Im in the UK but im sure this isnt isolated to the UK
Believe me. There's no shortage of bugs.
You can never get all the wild bees so its a pointless exercise unless they were really trying to take out food production.
Control the food, control the people. At the very least, create shortages to drive up the cost.
Thank You.. This is very insightful clip..
8:40 i suspect it was intentional
Peta
good video, well made - so well done! - subbed.💕💕
I enjoy your videos they have a lot of information and it's entertaining. As far as the whole incognito thing I like it for no other reason than it irritates a lot of the people on here. And as far as the fidgeting we all have nervous habits it's not a problem. I am curious however who's Steve? Thanks for the video keep doing you
wow. Good video. I live in aussie land and i appreciate this.
What I am missing here is the observation that the described way of beekeeping, with continuous transporting and only bringing the bees into mono cultures also weakens the bees, as this is a very unnatural, sub-optimal way for bees to live. They normally need a diverse nature with plants blooming all spring to fall.
Very good points!
That's just for commercial purposes. It's next to impossible for casual hobbyists/enthusiasts to have bees in their yard without high expenses, micromanagement, luck, and a lot of errors. Even hives allowed to just peacefully live in a yard are ravaged by varroa destructor mites. It wasn't this way before the spread of this mite.
@@iguanac6466 I cannot agree for Europe: yes, Varroa mite is a problem here also for hobbyists but under the more natural conditions most hives survive with few protective actions.E.g. in Berlin hobby beekeepers are thriving since a few years.
Hey, Drew Nikkin. Yeah I know who you are. You're a funny guy. I loved you on Kill Tony.
Cheers
Look at the honey trail, sorry money trail.
Q. Who stands to lose if many naturally pollinating food sources almost disappear.?
A. The world's population and other living organisms and our future survival.
Q. Who stands to make a fortune from a monopoly if farmers have buy and sow only patented genetically grown seeds$ fed with patented chemical fertilisers$ and sprayed with dangerous pesticides$.?
A =?
True
Do we know what feeds on the mites?
Probably cane toads 😂😂😂
Best not go down that road again 😢
@@jamesmaralyn6745 Exactly! Eventually nature will sort it all out and regain the necessary balance all by itself. Human actions start these problems and every time they try to "fix" their mistakes -- in a manner that allows them to continue doing that wrong thing -- they usually only end up creating more problems.
Destroying beehives is not the answer. They are already saying it didn’t work. Bees adapt to varroa.
Life finds a way is such basic advice. If it's a large enough scale, assume you shouldn't intervene.
They don't, at least not that quickly. Beekeepers adapt and find treatments.
The honey industry just using a scorched earth system to try to contain the outbreak, hopefully there will be a cure because bees making homey is one of the smallest benefits our agricultural industry gets from them.
They aren't evolving faster than the infestation. Crossbreeding European with African/asian honey is the route research is headed.
Varroa has been in the US for 50 years and we still don't have good sources of actual mite resistant bees to purchase. If it was that easy, it wouldn't be an issue anymore. Why even sell non-mite resistant bees if mite resistant bees were an actual thing?
Do bumblebees also get the mite? These are also good pollinators, although they do not produce significant amounts of honey. Here in Britain some growers use bumblebees for pollination crops in greenhouses.
@14:35 so beekeepers with 9 hives need to check 9 hives, where beekeeper with 11 hives have to check 2. :p
I caught that too.
Sounds like a Govt directive.
Quick fix: stop moving bees. Move queens and raise local bees.
They want to stop food production
Why? Everyone ears.
@@illawarriorhill70 ill tell you ONE thing I know .......... they DONT eat what we eat!
anyone else find that voice hard to listen to for extended periods of time?
Hi Steve! Australia again? They sure have a lot of problems down there! Thanks for the information! Catch you again next time!
mo land mo problems
Not really! It's just that we have kept a lot of pests out of our island nation with strict biosecurity.
@@VanillaMacaron551 Seems that is being brought off or given away now. Corrupt politicians, and stupid lazy people who wont do their jobs.
There is a guy in Poland that has developed a vaporiser of formic acid made out of a bottle, piecie od string, pin and floor underlay (such cardboard that is put under flooring panels). Simple and effective. Such contraption used twice a year solves the issue. He uses (lab grade)clean 80% formic acid.
Especially when he catches a new bee family he treats it with formic acid vaporiser. Cheap, effective, not harmful to bees nor people.
Fun fact: Wasps are important pollinators, too!
🐝
depends on the species
But they can't be moved and housed in a controlled fashion as honeybees are used.
So are flies
Some. Bubble bees are the best but do not travel far.
@@MicahsMotleyMissionDetectorist Moving bees is exactly what caused the problem and its spread to start with.
As an ex beekeeper, do the right thing before it destroys everywhere else.
How to prevent a cluster of bee hives from getting this?
Kind of like Humanity.
@@shazzz_land You don't. All bees will get mites and you just treat them on a regular basis.
@@einname9986 i doubt that you actually know about bees
@@shazzz_land I have been keeping bees for ~8 years and currently have ~30 hives. So I do know quite a bit about beekeeping.
As a beekeeper this is ridiculous. Varroa mites are a common issue I have been dealing with for a decade now. Strangely it was an Australian you tube video that showed me how to control them. That was about 8-years ago. Varroa are very controllable. You can fumigate them with a common organic acid that occurs often in nature. No need to use dangerous pesticides. Also putting in drone frames concentrates the mites in those frames. When larvae are present remove and feed to chickens they love the high protein treat. Replace and repeat. Inspect drone larvae for varroa treatment if populations of mites are high. Destroying bee colonies to control them is ludicrous. Sounds like something government bureaucrats would do sadly. What government doesn’t seem to know is mites will infect wild bee colonies as well. As wild bees feed the mites will jump from flowers to bees. So long story short you can’t eradicate them.
The bee population in the U.S. has increased over the last few years. Sooo..
Hobby Beekeeper in SA. Once I was in one of my hives and I came across a pseudo Scorpion. A really cool little spider that eats the mites as far as I understand. They will even hitch a ride when the colony moves.
UA-cam keeps dropping my subscription
Same
I remember this coming into NZ. Lots of talk & then no action.
"Australia Got Bee Killers, a Year Later, Everyone Was Shocked"
Was this the original title?
@@BFT88 - One of them. 😏
@@Nmethyltransferase 😂
That was good, very well researched and accurate 🙏🌻🐝❤️
Bees are breed not to swarm anymore. Swarming and founding a new colony was a natural way of young queens to let infected hives behind.
Not true. A good beekeeper can see signs that the bee might swarm. The beginning of queen cells at the bottom of frames is a sign the colony is crowded and they want to swarm. At that point once the beekeeper sees the larvi in the cells, they do a 'walk away split'
Wrong: The old queen leaves with some of the bees, founding a new colony. The first hatching young queen kills all her sisters, mates and then lays eggs to keep the old hive alive.
Though occasionally some young queen bee also swarms as a second swarm, if there are still enough bees left in the hive.
@@einname9986 However. Swarming would be a natural defense.
@@gargoyle7863 In practice it does not work. Even colonies made from swarms (natural or artificial) will die during winter, if not treated correctly against mites.
Trust me. Been there, done that.
@@einname9986 I'm a beekeeper, I know that. I didn't want to write a book in response.
No one will ever accuse you of spreading Covid--and I LOVE your accurate and interesting information. 😉
Keep your own hives
many dont want to hear about live stock bee hives etc, they only want cumfy offices and good paychecks, they don't understand nor want to understand that curent world is built on livestock bees and fruit trees
It's not easy. It requires a level of micromanagement that most casual hobbyists aren't willing to do. It's very expensive and time consuming (weekly inspections, mite treatments, etc).
If you think you're just going to set up a hive and just let them do their thing, expect 90% of your hives to die before you find one that's a strong enough to thrive despite an infestation. A hive's worth of bees costs about $200 - $300 (depending on whether you just buy a few pounds of bees or a NUC (which includes 5 full frames of brood and honey)).
My advice...raise chickens. Much easier.
@iguanac6466 or u can set up empty hives when the summer starts and u ll have a few families by the end of the year.
Free of charge, you only pay for the housing and some local honey to give them food to install in and make the home
As a bee keeper, i pray over my bees. After the collapse syndrone a few years ago. I came to the realization only the Great Creator of heaven and earth, and all that dwells there in, on, and below. Can protect my bees!
They can kill the mites with oscillic acid it only takes a few minutes and is what beekeepers do in the US after the mites desimated honey bees. The mites are from china and got here in 1980.
Formic acid (evaporated 200ml over ~2 weeks) works great as well and also kills mites within the brood. Oxalic acid (both sublimated as well as dripped) only kills mites sitting on the adult bees.
The common story is that the mites originated in Japan, and that they are commonly found on the Japanese honeybee. They then spread when beekeepers tried to crossbreed with Japanese honeybees and brought the mites back with them.
I haven't heard the China theory before.
Well done great Educational content....
Yep boarder control failing again
Correct me if I am wrong, years ago I remember beekeepers used a chemical which killed most insects but had little effect on bees if any, it was used for the moth and its Larvae that eat the wax. The chemical was Chlordane.
You always say you need a cup of coffee, but then you do the whole show without drinking any coffee!
that defines being in need of...
Coffee is for research...
He reminds me of Brew