Must be talking about his inland colonies. I can assure you that there were no bees flying on the 'rock' this morning -unless they were clinging to the hive as that took off!Looking at a varroa floor this morning while the bees were flying busily as if summer
Hi chaps
Snow here today so no flying or anything like that
When it comes to varroa collection trays, any that have gaps will let all sorts of clean up insects in
Some folk thinking there was no natural drop were surprised to find lots of varroa when they treated
The headless bees are being eaten and probably got there while finding tasty items themselves
Likewise any dead varroa are going the same way
If I saw live varroa with some missing bits it would be more convincing than a legless corpse
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I might be guilty of this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
But I try to not to bee (sic)
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Just noticed this clip elsewhere about Ron Hoskins' work and super infection exclusion
http://treatmentfreebeekeepers.co.uk...rvation-group/
Yep - I mentioned super infection exclusion for DMV a while back. So no more varroa treatment with OA then, better start selecting for VSH !
Some dubious comments on other pages of that website. The sort of stuff that's likely to lead to beginners of a certain persuasion ending up feeling very sorry for themselves. Generally an odd mix of useful stuff such as a take-off of the sustainable apiary philosophy tempered with a gung-ho live or let die approach.Originally Posted by Jon
Another Kent beekeeper called Mike with interesting views; must be something in the honey.
As for:
Probably quite right but I wouldn't hold my breath as there seems to be a long waiting list.The next stage seems to me to require dissemination of his bees amongst other treatment free beekeepers to see how they perform away from his carefully controlled conditions.
You wouldn't actually need any of rons queens ...just some sort of way to inoculate your hive with his dwv strain... I have heard of human fecal transplant what about honeybee hive detritus transplant? Or a varroa swap? Lol
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You might be thinking of Yakult brothermoo that contains poo extract (yum)
I'm still in "the only good varroa is a dead varroa camp" but I can see that DWV which doesn't deform wings might be good
Harmless Deformed Wing Virus -- is that an oxymoron ?
I will be a minor miracle if it is
Varroa-free bees - have detectable DWV but rare (if any) deformed wing disease. This has been reported a number of times. The virus was also first identified in UK bees before Varroa was introduced to the UK. In the absence of the mite DWV isn't a problem for bees. Sure, a very few might get sick, perhaps because they have defective immune responses or whatever, but the large-scale carnage seen by uncontrolled mite transmission is absent.
More recently Schroeder and Martin have reported a 'harmless' strain which appears almost the same as the original Varroa Destructor Virus type 1 first published back in 2004 by Monique van Oers.
The Martin paper re the arrival of mites on some of the Hawaiian islands is a good read re DWV variants.
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