Importing Austrailian Bees

Natalie · January 17, 2009, 07:52:10 PM

I was wondering if anyone had heard anything about this.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090117/ap_on_re_us/disappearing_bees

BjornBee · January 18, 2009, 09:53:38 AM

I have not heard about this particular other bee, but I am convinced that if this continues, that many other pests and stories will be coming our way.

If I had my way, there would at least be equal trade policies. We get bees from places that allow our bees to be imported there... :-D That would end some of this crap fast!

NashBeek · January 18, 2009, 12:27:18 PM

I read the report on the internet that the USDA was allowing Austrailian honeybees to be imported into California on the 17th also.

Natalie · January 18, 2009, 12:31:01 PM

A bee supplier in california has been advertising these bees in the American Bee Journal as well, I just happened to notice the ad last night after reading about this yesterday.
As if this Country doesn't have enough problems already.
There are so many things that we import that we don't even have to.
I don't know when the government will learn.

TwT · January 18, 2009, 12:34:45 PM

this is a post posted a week back or so, wonder if they talking about the same bee.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,18948.0.html

fermentedhiker · January 18, 2009, 02:32:29 PM

I think they are TWT. From what I could scare up on google it's just the Javanese strain of Apis Cerana. I pretty sure from what I've read that they allow importation of bees from Australia because up to this point anyways they were free of Varroa. Which honestly seems kind of pointless since they seem to be everywhere here already. Raising resistant stock is the only viable solution. From reading about Apis Cerana in the past I wasn't aware that they posed a serious robbing problem when in proximity to A. mellifera colonies. Are there any members here who live in an area where they coexist that could relate their experiences on how they interact?

brooksbeefarm · January 18, 2009, 06:20:21 PM

From what i've read it's not the varroa mite so much, as the tropilaelaps clarae mite.It reproduces faster than the varroa and will be the demise of the european bees if or when it arrives in the USA. A scary thought.As of yet the aussies don't have them,(maybe) but their neighbor does.

tig · January 18, 2009, 09:18:14 PM

hi, i live in the philippines and apis cerana is our local bee. in one of my beeyards where i have 30 mellifera boxes, my friend also has 60 cerana hives. from my observation, robbing by cerana was no more worse than being robbed by my own colonies except for the fact that the cerana was always the first to start it. for example, if i opened a box of mellifera, within a few minutes cerana would come and try to rob and that would trigger the neighboring mellifera to join in. this was even more apparent and problematic during the rainy season. the solution was to feed the cerana before opening my mellifera. but also on a note, while inspecting the cerana, my melliferas would also try to rob and have actually killed off some weak cerana colonies.

apis cerana is a smaller, faster and more oportunistic bee. the aren't prone to varroa because of their absconding nature plus they groom themselves, which causes the mites to fall off. this is true also of trophilaelaps clarae. the primary carrier of trophilaelaps clarea is the apis dorsata which doesn't seem bothered by it because of their migratory nature.

based on the studies of the university of the philippines los banos, trophilaelaps clarae can decimate a mellifera colony much faster than varroa because they propagate much faster. both mites can infest a colony, however, whichever mite takes up residence first becomes the dominant pest. they call it suppresive dominance. so if trophilaelaps invades your colony, you may have varroa also, but the varroa will not be able to propagate much and vice versa. varroa will cause your colony to collapse in about 4 months. trophilaelaps will kill it in 2 months time. the treatment of trophilaelaps is the same as that of varroa. i'm not sure if a sugar shake will control trophilaelaps since there havent been any trials here in the philippines. for that matter, i'm not sure a screened bottom board will help because trophilaelaps is smaller than varroa. they look like very fine thread like worms that hop around the frames very fast. it can easily be over looked by the beekeeper because they are hard to spot.

BTW: which neighbor of australia is purported to have trophilaelaps?

rdy-b · January 18, 2009, 10:09:30 PM

QuoteEntomologists also fear that the aggressive bee species found near Australia's Great Barrier Reef could carry a deadly mite, said Jeff Pettis, the USDA's top bee scientist.

I think they only found cerana-not the Trp mite-but the fear is where there is cerana there is Trp mite or soon to be-what is your treatment schedule for treating your melliferia colonies -what do you think would be the out come for the natural and do not treat camp if the Trp mite got a foot hold in the USA :-\ RDY-B

tig · January 18, 2009, 10:45:20 PM

i would think the outcome for the do-not-treat camp is good. i don't treat my colonies for any kind of mites unless i see an infestation. 1 have 4 sites and only 1 is mite prone due to movement of other beekeepers in the area during honeyflow. i've never been hit with trp mite....yet! but some of my friend have and it wasn't a good experience for them because they didn't know what hit them until the colonies were collapsing. they treated with apistan which somehow controlled.

if you look at the life cycle of the trp mite, it cannot survive without larva since it cannot feast on the hard skeleton of an adult bee. it survives roughly 2 days without any larva to feed on. i would think caging the queen to have a broodless cycle would somehow control...just like in varroa. i will quote the cycle here.

The colonising Tropilaelaps female (or females; as many as a dozen may occur within individual a single cells) places from one to four eggs on mature bee larvae shortly before the brood cell is capped. The drone brood is preferred by Tropilaelaps and may be almost 100% parasitised (2). The mite progeny, usually one male and several females feed on and seriously damage the bee brood. Development of the mite requires about 1 week. The adults, including the foundress female, emerge with the adult bee and search for new hosts.

The short life-cycle, as well as a very brief stay on adult bees, explains why populations of T. clareae increase faster than those of Varroa mites. When both T. clareae and Varroa destructor infest the same colony, the former may out-compete the Varroa mite (2, 15). It has been reported that when both mite species are in the same cell, the reproduction of both mites declines (14).

Phoretic survival on bees is quite short (only 1-2 days) because Tropilaelaps cannot pierce the integument of adult bees. The phoretic time for Tropilaelaps spp. is important in understanding the life cycle, and recent research suggests the period can be as long as 5-10 days (17, 18). Gravid female mites will die within 2 days unless they deposit their eggs (19).

Infestation by Tropilaelaps causes the death of many bee larvae (up to 50%), resulting in an irregular brood pattern and of which the cadavers that may partially protrude from the cells. Many malformed bees occur, with distorted abdomens, stubby wings and deformed or missing legs. Some of the affected bees crawl at the hive's entrance (1). In addition, perforated cappings are seen, the result of sanitation activities by the worker bees, which evict the infested bee pupae or young adults. Some infested colonies abscond, carrying the mites to a new location.

i am fortunate because my former neighbor who became my friend is dr. merci delfinado-baker. it turns out she's a mite expert and was the one who discovered and studied the trp mite and apparently it's named after her. the name being Tropilaelaps clareae Delfinado and Baker and T. koenigerum Delfinado-Baker and Baker. i remember conversations with her regarding natural mite control. she stressed that there should not be a dependence on miticides because of the resistance factor, not to mention the potential residue in the comb which may contaminate honey, even though the manufactors claim otherwise. she advocated natural control except if my colonies were badly hit, then i would have to make an initial chemical treatment but only to save the colony and from that point, be on the lookout for a reinfestation.

since the trp mite breeds much faster than varroa, if i were hit by it and i didn't want to use a miticide, i would shake out the bees into new foundations and rebuild. at the same time i would burn all the existing combs with brood and larva. as you can read from above, the trp mite cannot survive without brood and larva. having the bees draw new foundations will mean several days of being broodless.

if i were to start an apiary, i would order package bees because even if initially infested with trp, the mites would die off during transit and installation.

Natalie · January 19, 2009, 01:53:41 AM

Wow, thanks for some interesting information.

Brian D. Bray · January 19, 2009, 04:37:07 PM

Quotei am fortunate because my former neighbor who became my friend is dr. merci delfinado-baker. it turns out she's a mite expert and was the one who discovered and studied the trp mite and apparently it's named after her. the name being Tropilaelaps clareae Delfinado and Baker and T. koenigerum Delfinado-Baker and Baker. i remember conversations with her regarding natural mite control. she stressed that there should not be a dependence on miticides because of the resistance factor, not to mention the potential residue in the comb which may contaminate honey, even though the manufactors claim otherwise. she advocated natural control except if my colonies were badly hit, then i would have to make an initial chemical treatment but only to save the colony and from that point, be on the lookout for a reinfestation.

since the trp mite breeds much faster than varroa, if i were hit by it and i didn't want to use a miticide, i would shake out the bees into new foundations and rebuild. at the same time i would burn all the existing combs with brood and larva. as you can read from above, the trp mite cannot survive without brood and larva. having the bees draw new foundations will mean several days of being broodless.

if i were to start an apiary, i would order package bees because even if initially infested with trp, the mites would die off during transit and installation.

That is along the lines of what I've been advocating on varroa treatment...an interruption of the brood cycle. It sounds to me that we need to be thinking about how to treat for the trip mites, maybe even incorporate some of those control practices, before they reach the USA. Seems to me that what will work on the trip mite will also have a big effect on the varroa mite. Things to think about.