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Re: World's Beeswax Contamination Increasing



In article <961203230151_73652.1202_DHR81-7@CompuServe.COM> 73652.1202@compuserve.com (Patricia Dines) writes:

>Apparently, the pesticide that beekeepers are using against the
>Varroa mite (Apistan/fluvalinate) is accumulating at high levels in
>the beeswax, and there is concern both about it harming the bees at
>those levels (and consumers of honey??) but also about Varroa mites
>developing resistance to the pesticides...  (what a surprise!  when
>will we realize that resistance is a _predictable_ outcome of
>pesticides, it's only an issue of when it will develop - and thus at
>the very least their use should be at the absolute minimum to make
>that time as long as possible.  But, no!, we want to put Bt into all
>our corn...!)

I'm interested in hearing your suggestions as to alternatives.  All
the unmedicated hives in my part of the world have already died.  Bee
pollination is crucial to many branches of agriculture.  No magical
cure for Varroa is available, or we'd all be using it.  My jaw
practicaly hit the floor when I heard the price of Apistan.  For
people like me, with only a couple of hives, beekeeping has suddenly
become very expensive.

>I pass this along for your info.  Also, I have some questions:

>1) Does anyone know more about Apistan/fluvalinate and related
>pesticides? What category of pesticide are they? What are they
>derived from? What company (companies) make them?

I don't have my package of Apistan at hand, or I'd tell you.  You
can call up a beekeeping supplier, and they'd probably read you
the label over the phone.  Then you call the manufacturer, get a
data sheet, and maybe talk to one of their scientists.

>2) Are there natural alternatives?  I thought I remembered hearing
>about menthol or something being used...?

We quickly ended up with methol-resistant strains.  (What a surprise!
When will we realize that resistance is a *predictable* outcome of
pesticides?)

>3) Does anyone know of any studies that examine why the varolla mites
>became such a problem in the first place?  As I recall, they were an
>exotic (foreign) mite, at least in the U.S.  Is that true?  If so,
>where do they come from?  Do they have no natural predators anywhere
>in the world?  

I don't know.  I don't get the journals, and I'm way behind in my
reading of the popular press.  You could probably find some of the
researchers with a Web search on "Varroa."  Ask 'em.

>One theory I have is that pesticides perhaps knocked out the natural
>mite/predator balance that would've kept them in check.  (I'm
>thinking this because of a conversation I had once with an apple
>farmer who said he stopped using mitacides and stopped having
>problems with mites - he said, because the broad-spectrum mitacide
>was killing both the good and bad mites. (He also nurtured his trees
>more.) )  Another theory I have is that pesticides might've weakened
>the bees and made them more vulnerable than they otherwise would've
>been (because many pesticides harm bees, including weakening them).  

I would think that the bees in national forests and other extremely
remote parts of the West would have survived if this is the case,
but it's my understanding that they're all dead.

>Do you know of any study or expert discussion of these notions or
>other possible links between bees' mite problems and pesticides?  If
>so, I'd very much appreciate getting the info.  If not, I'd like to
>suggest it as a worthy research subject.  We're heading right to a
>huge crisis on pollinators, which will cause a huge crisis in ag and
>likely cause food prices to skyrocket, so getting better
>understanding of underlying nature of this problem (vs. just the
>short-term pesticide approach) could make a big difference,
>literally, for the world....

You ought to do a literature search.  I am not up on the research,
but I'm under the impression that a great deal is going
on.  Some of the work will be on-line, which is handy if you're
not near an agricultural college's library.  There's nothing like
reading thirty or forty papers and an equal number of articles
in the trade press to get an idea of what's going on in a
field.

	-- Robert
-- 
Robert Plamondon, President/Managing Editor, High-Tech Technical Writing, Inc. 
36475 Norton Creek Road * Blodgett * Oregon * 97326
robert@plamondon.com * (541) 453-5841 * Fax: (541) 453-4139