Metarhizium anisopliae

[helen99]

Saving Bees: Fungus Found To Attack Varroa Mites

A while ago you may have heard that honeybees were dying because of a mite infection. They tried several poisons, but the poisons were harmful to bees, the mite became resistant to the poisons, and one of the chemicals is on the EPA hit list for removal from the market. On a whim, I did a search on beekeeping and found the above link which says they've found a naturally occurring fungus called metarhizium anisopliae, which kills the varroa mite (and, incidentally, termites). It has been tested and shown to be harmless to bees and over time does not affect hive population. I'm not entirely sure what its Big Picture effect will be. Better than a chemical poison, no doubt. I'm hopeful for the bees, at any rate.

Yay!

Comments

[fendahleen.livejournal.com]

It's only a matter of time before this fungus decides it has no further need of us.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

One can dream...

[sunshaker.livejournal.com]

Being a bit of a bee lover (honey and mead are lovely things) I went to a few beekeeper meetings and the like and read stuff online. One of the things I read about was how the industry itself was causing the mite problem by making bigger bees (bigger bees = more honey). It seems that the pre-made sheets of wax used by beekeepers for the bees to make cells are actually 3-5mm larger than the normal size that the bees would make themselves, thus the cells that the bees make are larger and leave more room for the larvae to grow, which results in a larger bee. Seems like a good idea, the only downside is that the bees require more food to survive. Well this is not the case the, these larger cells leave more room for the mites to lay eggs on the bee larvae (up to 3 times the number of mite eggs are placed on each bee).

From what I recall a number of organic beekeepers started allowing the bees to make the cells the size they normally would make them and experienced a drop in mite problems. Of course they had smaller bees and got a lower yield.

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I saw this on a number of friends pages including rialian

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I had no idea they had interfered to that extent. No wonder there was a problem. They need to stick with the *exact* natural size, or obviously there will be repercussions, and nobody can possibly know in advance what the repercussions will be (same with GMOs and all kinds of other tampering) though the more extrapolating minds can venture a guess.

Hopefully enough people revert to the natural size to avert a total disaster.

[sunshaker.livejournal.com]

Oddly it may have been beneficial for the wild bees as they are now more immune*. If the beekeepers enough beekeepers go back to the normal size of the honeybee then the mites will drop back to normal levels. The only reason there was such a problem amongst the wild bees was the massive amount of mites in the domesticated population (the plague spread to the healthy population because of the concentration in the unhealthy population).

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* Of course a statement like that might lead someone to accuse me of thinking that a few plagues for mankind (say bird flu) might be in the best interests of everyone...

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I think that GMOs can be safe, but only if the people doing the modification think about it first (and if they were unable to obtain patents for the work they do). The way it is set up right now I question the safety of the GMOs.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I wtend to agree that GMOs are not a good idea right now. Even if they substantially improve the current setup, it seems to me that (much like the weather) the biosphere is interconnected to the extent that a minute change in one lifeform may affect entire systems that interact with it (millions of lifeforms). The way in which multiple systems are affected may not be effectively predictable (too many variables).

[sunshaker.livejournal.com]

This came up in a discussion on human skin color (turns out there are 7 genes that determine color and that multi-ethnic couples can have children with vastly different skin colors, I posted a link to that article on my lj), it was decided that even if you genetically engineered everyone to have the same skin color that with in a few generations climate and environment would shift certain populations either darker or lighter (so much for an "easy" fix to racism).

[helen99.livejournal.com]

And they'd also better be using bees wax. If they use other kinds of wax, of course the bees won't be as healthy and their immune systems will be compromised. Idiot children.

[sunshaker.livejournal.com]

I have no information on that, I'm sure there are people that do not use beeswax but most (if not all) beekeepers use beeswax. Most beekeepers have a machine that will roll out sheets of beeswax for them (rather like a printing press), they will have to get new rollers for those machines or whole new machines if they want to switch over which is $. Other beekeepers use a wire set up (the wire is in the hex shape) which the bees build the wax comb onto (not sure of the metals used so that could again be a problem and it would make honey still in the comb unpleasant to eat).