Diseases

When we talk of diseases & pests in honeybees there is one topic that dominates all of the others. Varroa Destructor, the parasitic mite that is the villain of the peace! So much has already been written on the subject and so much time, effort and money has been spent on eradicating this pest. Seems to me that all this effort and money spent has been a waste of time because the bees have sorted it out for themselves. Feral bees and bees kept in natural nests with little disturbance have found a way to live with varroa.

My simplistic view of the relationship between bee and mite is to picture it like a see-saw! Bees on one seat and varroa on the other.

The conventional treatments of varroacides swing the see-saw heavily in favour of the bees for a time but in doing so encourages super mites which eventually get the better of the bees again. So the cycle repeats and the bee-keeper has to use varroacides of some description again to knock down the mites, sometimes these 'icides' have to be stronger than before because the mites have become stronger and grown resistant to the previous 'icides'. The up down of the see-saw does little in the long term for the state of health of the colony.

The natural bee-keeper views things differently, they realize that the war with varroa will never be won and that the best course of action is to negotiate a peace. They have realized that bees and varroa have to learn to live together. So the bee end of the see-saw now has naturally built comb in the nest, no poisoned wax, selected genetics which have survived locally for some generations and little to disturb the way the bees want do things in the hive. The swing effect of the see-saw starts to come back to the bee and although there is some movement of the see-saw, a kind of balance is maintained. At first these simple measures may not be enough and the bee-keeper has to help out at the bee end of the see-saw by dusting with sugar powder and other such biotechnical methods.

What about some of the other major diseases, Nosema, Foul Brood and the like. A strong healthy natural colony can keep these diseases at bay. Inspections for such can be timed to coincide with Spring and autumn hive openings thereby reducing the disturbance to acceptable levels.

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