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RE: HSCO Featured Vendor | Meet "Bees by Prof. Bromide"!
Great interview! You asked a lot of great questions , @senorcoconut!
@professorbromide, you are living part of my dream! So amazing to see these beautiful images and learn from a studied apiarist ! I had no idea that there had been a genetic adaptation for the varroa mite! That is truly incredible to hear.
With this adaptation, has there been a decrease in the instances of colony collapse disorder?
There are three behavioral adaptations that help to control the varroa mites. Some bees can smell the breeding mites on brood and will drag the infested brood out to dispose of them. It sounds brutal, but it is very effective. Other bees are very aggressive about cleaning mites off of each other. I've seen this behavior in my bees and it is fun to watch. The last adaptation is just making a pause in brood rearing during midsummer droughts. The mites can't breed if there is no bee brood to host them.
That last adaptation has been bred out of all of the bees that are used in commercial apiaries. Commercial beekeepers always want maximum productivity. That is why I like to use the feral bees, they are not as productive but they are tough.
There are probably some other genetic variations that help the bees deal with the viruses spread by the mites. You can't directly observe those adaptations but they are certainly valuable.
I don't know if we ever got a full explanation of what caused colony collapse disorder. The strongest hypothesis blames tiny doses of neonicanoid pesticides that don't kill the bees, but ruin their nervous system. We don't have a lot of intensive agriculture here in central VA, so neonics are not a problem.
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Oh wow, they're just amazing... It seems everything in our ecosystem is so much stronger than any domesticated version.
Of course feral bees are more resiliant!!! It makes so much sense.
Thanks again for another lesson
Thank you very much @Alchemage! I learn quite a lot through these interviews.