Talk:Diseases of the honey bee

Heh, now that I see the names in front of me, I remember a lot more of them than just the tracheal mites; I remember worrying about foulbrood (presumably the American variety), wax moths, and of course chill too. All my apiary experience is about a decade and a half old, though, so e.g. the varroa mites are news to me.

Could we get a description of the "K-wing deformity"? Otherwise there isn't much point to mentioning it. Like I said, I don't know these varroa mites at all, so I have no idea what it means, though I'd guess it results in either a wing or the set of wings being shaped somewhat like the letter 'K'.

We had wax moths here in Wisconsin, so I'm going to slightly weaken "generally not a problem" to "usually not a problem".

Thanks for the good work, Rossami! :) -- John Owens 20:47 May 7, 2003 (UTC)
 * Regarding the "K-wing" deformity, I just found a couple of examples on the 'Net: here (needs scrolling a bit) and especially here, both with photos. Could someone with better English skills describe the condition in this article? saimhe 12:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Recent Vampire Mite Scare
The recent devastation of hives appears to be due to Varroa becomming immune to chemical miticides-however organic controls using Essential Oils particulary mint are effective, and effective against other problems. I added a link at the bottom, lack of time at moment to edit the page.
 * Well, if you really study the numbers, it's not at all clear that there actually is a "recent devastation of hives". The reported loss rate for the 2004/2005 winter appears to be within the statistical fluctuation of normal winter losses (according to both an informed discussion on the BEE-L listserve and a recent article in Bee Culture magazine).
 * The attribution of this year's losses to Varroa immunity is also a hotly contested question. Many well-informed beekeepers consider it equally likely that the losses are due to the gradual build-up of those same chemicals in the hive (particularly in the wax comb) as a stressor on the colony.  Or that vaguaries in the weather caused the colonies to starve mere inches away from the honey.  Or that tracheal mites are back as a significant threat in North America.  Or that increased pesticide use in the areas around the hive are the culprit.
 * On top of that, I'm afraid that you will find lots of anecdotes but very few published and repeatable studies about the effectiveness of essential oils (mint or otherwise) in combatting varroa. I'd be very interested if you know of any verifiable studies, though.  Rossami (talk) 16:40, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pulled comments
I'm pulling this comment from the section on "Drone brood excision" (a sub-bullet of the Varroa section). Not all top-bar hive keepers cycle comb in the manner described. Some do use miticides. Rossami (talk) 6 July 2005 21:42 (UTC) "Note that miticides cannot be used in top bar hives due to the way comb is cycled through the hive for control of other diseases such as foul brood." I'm pulling this comment because recent research is disputing this rule of thumb. Several recent studies have shown that the "acceptable" mite load on a colony is time-dependent (at least, in temperate climates). A load that is easily survivable in the spring or early summer can be lethal to the colony in the fall (because the colony enters winter with a high proportion of bees that have already been stressed by the parasitization). I'd like to get this full discussion of acceptable mite load into the article somewhere but haven't yet figured out where. Rossami (talk) 6 July 2005 21:49 (UTC) "It is generally considered acceptable if the number of varroa mites does not exceed 25 percent of the number of drone larvae and pupae."

Acarine mites?
Is this in fact the correct term? In isolation, it's a tautology, like "canine dogs" or "feline cats"; every mite, by definition, is acarine. The pages linked in the "References" section all use the term "tracheal mites". If this term is actually used (and I should say that I know very little about beekeeping), then it needs to be referenced. Tevildo 21:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You are not the first person to wonder how people could fail to recognize the tautology, but common names are like that, and beekeepers use the term "acarine mites" quite often (see and references cited therein for an example). The reason appears to be that the disease was originally known as "acarine disease". The (il)logical extension to a beekeeper was, if a mite transmits acarine disease, then you call it an "acarine mite", the same way you refer to "malaria mosquitoes" or "lyme ticks" (or "West Nile virus"). The reverse is also true - beekeepers converted scientific names like Nosema or Varroa into the name of the disease (so you will see numerous references to "varroa" in the beekeeping literature), because someone, somewhere, evidently assumed that when a scientist mentioned the "Varroa mite" to them it meant that it was a mite which transmitted "varroa". It has its own brand of logic, and it's doubtful that these memes will ever die, now that they're established. Dyanega 17:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Ahh, I see, thanks. Perhaps this would be a useful addition to the article text? Tevildo 21:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It might be, if there was any way to prove that was how the usage was derived. In effect, it constitutes "original research" and would not be appropriate material for the article itself - though here on the talk page, it's fine to offer such an unverifiable explanation. Dyanega 22:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Dysentery
I'm a beekeeper from Sweden, which is known for being a nordic and rather cold country. In short, I think the sentence "Occasional warm days in winter are critical for honey bee survival; dysentery problems increase in likelihood if there are periods of more than two or three weeks with temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit." is plain wrong. My hives frequently withstand more than a month of mostly below-zero centigrade (that's 32 Farenheit) without suffering from more than very mild dysentery. Over ten years of beekeeping I have yet to lose a hive to cold, mould or dysentery - in fact I've never lost a colony at all. Swedish bees normally don't leave the hive at all between say, november and march. Then they all go simultaneously on some sunny day in early spring (frequently leaving our cars looking like they had a really weird paint job...). We do not normally keep our hives indoors or even isolate them during the winter, but we do remove as much honey as we can in the autumn and give them, not corn syrup, but a solution of table sugar (saccharose) in water, or commersially prepared feed which also mostly contains sugar. However it would be nice with some more input on this before I edit the section; for all I know what is considered common knowledge in Sweden might be wrong and I've missed some scientific paper on the matter... Furiku 11:37, 5 May 2007 (UTC)