{"id":123,"date":"2012-12-07T13:14:08","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T19:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/?page_id=123"},"modified":"2024-02-04T10:26:13","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T16:26:13","slug":"russian-bee-pests-attacks","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks","title":{"rendered":"Russian Bee Pests & Attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russian Bee Pests and Attacks<\/h3>\n
\"Bee<\/a>
Bee vs Ant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ants & Earwigs<\/h3>\n

The Russian Bee Pests and Attacks are first seen by an invasion of ants followed by and invasion of earwigs. The generally accepted management technique is prevention not restoration of an infected colony. \u00a0Ants reproduce at a horrific rate and will out number bees quickly.<\/p>\n

We tried eradicating the ants with various methods;\u00a0diatomaceous earth, tanglefoot, cinnamon, standing the hive legs in oil, and a seek and destroy mission in the evening to dig out ant hills from the bee yard. \u00a0Digging out the ant hills was the most labor intensive but seemed to work the best. The yard looked like a mine field and the lawn tractor had to dodge all the pot holes.<\/p>\n

\"Borax<\/a>
Borax Ant Bait<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A saturated borax solution was used mixing it in a\u00a0 1:1 ratio by volume with a saturated sugar solution. Borax is sodium tetraborate and is available at the grocery store as a laundry aid.\u00a0 It is marketed as 20 Mule team borax. \u00a0A little goes a long way since it is \u00a0about 4% soluble in water.\u00a0The mixture is highly toxic to\u00a0carpenter ants.<\/p>\n

The mixture was placed into a disposable\u00a0plastic cup. \u00a0A hole was placed in the cover that is larger than the ants but too small to let a honey bee in. The cups were\u00a0placed above the inner cover with an empty shallow super above the inner cover followed by the outer cover. The ants like to move to the top of the hive and lay eggs in the crevasses of the inner cover. The mixture will kill the ant colony but\u00a0the method is too slow.\u00a0All methods have various \u00a0disadvantages and do not yield complete eradication.\u00a0The farm will test the use of cedar chips around the hives during the 2013 bee season.<\/p>\n

Hive Beetles<\/h3>\n
\"Hive<\/a>
Hive Beetle Photo by
Dr. Denis Anderson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Journal of Economic Entomology<\/a>\u00a0 Russians have a better resistance to small hive beetles than the Italian breed. During each observation period, the average number of invading beetles was higher in the Italian colonies (29. 5 beetles) than in the Russian honey bee colonies (16.3 beetles).<\/p>\n

deGuzman<\/a> shows that Russians have a heightened aggressiveness toward SHB. Both stocks removed significantly more dead beetles (Russian = 67%, Italian = 57%) than live beetles (Russian = 13%, Italian = 0). Russian honey bees also removed live beetles (4.01 \u00b1 1.96 min) as fast as the Italian bees removed dead beetles (4.30 \u00b1 1.11 min).<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Trachael Mites<\/h3>\n

SMF has not had any incidence of tracheal mites. Tracheal mite populations, according to De Guzman’s research “remained very low in Primorsky colonies regardless of the management tools employed. Several conclusions are apparent: 1) The ARS Primorsky honey bees tested exhibited strong resistance to tracheal mites and do not require treatment for tracheal mite control.”<\/p>\n

Varroa Mites,<\/h3>\n
\"Varroa<\/a>
Worker with Varroa Mite<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The farm uses an integrated pest management system (IPM); a\u00a0screened bottom board, and monitoring mite loads every 10 days during normal hive inspections. Mites attach themselves to the drone larvae on day 8, before the cells are capped.\u00a0A drone frame is placed in the brood box and replaced with an empty drone frame after the drone brood is capped. \u00a0A drone cell is approximately 6.125 mm and larvae protrudes the cell whereas a worker cell is 4.9 mm and appears somewhat flat.\u00a0Mite loads have been extremely low using these two methods along side a Russian Bee that is already Varroa\u00a0resistant.<\/p>\n

Hive splits can be timed so that Varroa mites self destruct. \u00a0A break in the brood cycle by the removal of the queen, either temporarily or by a hive split will naturally rid the hive of most mites. Please see Hive Splits for a more in-depth discussion of how hive splits help to control Varroa mites.\u00a0(Next Additional Observations)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russian Bee Pests and Attacks Ants & Earwigs The Russian Bee Pests and Attacks are first seen by an invasion of ants followed by and invasion of earwigs. The generally accepted management technique is prevention not restoration of an infected colony. \u00a0Ants reproduce at a horrific rate and will out number bees quickly. We tried <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3898,"parent":54,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-123","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nRussian Bee Pests and Attacks at Sweet Mountain Farm<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Russian bee pests and attacks. Research on Varroa destructor, trachial mites, and ants with links to ARS bee lab research articles.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russian Bee Pests and Attacks at Sweet Mountain Farm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Russian bee pests and attacks. Research on Varroa destructor, trachial mites, and ants with links to ARS bee lab research articles.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sweet Mountain Farm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-04T16:26:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/varroabyGillesSanMartin.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"686\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks\",\"name\":\"Russian Bee Pests and Attacks at Sweet Mountain Farm\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/varroabyGillesSanMartin.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-12-07T19:14:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-02-04T16:26:13+00:00\",\"description\":\"Russian bee pests and attacks. Research on Varroa destructor, trachial mites, and ants with links to ARS bee lab research articles.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/varroabyGillesSanMartin.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/varroabyGillesSanMartin.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":686},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Russian Bees\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Russian Bee Pests & Attacks\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sweet Mountain Farm\",\"description\":\"Washington Island, Wisconsin\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Russian Bee Pests and Attacks at Sweet Mountain Farm","description":"Russian bee pests and attacks. Research on Varroa destructor, trachial mites, and ants with links to ARS bee lab research articles.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Russian Bee Pests and Attacks at Sweet Mountain Farm","og_description":"Russian bee pests and attacks. Research on Varroa destructor, trachial mites, and ants with links to ARS bee lab research articles.","og_url":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks","og_site_name":"Sweet Mountain Farm","article_modified_time":"2024-02-04T16:26:13+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":686,"url":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/varroabyGillesSanMartin.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks","url":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks","name":"Russian Bee Pests and Attacks at Sweet Mountain Farm","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/varroabyGillesSanMartin.jpg","datePublished":"2012-12-07T19:14:08+00:00","dateModified":"2024-02-04T16:26:13+00:00","description":"Russian bee pests and attacks. Research on Varroa destructor, trachial mites, and ants with links to ARS bee lab research articles.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/varroabyGillesSanMartin.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/varroabyGillesSanMartin.jpg","width":1024,"height":686},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees\/russian-bee-pests-attacks#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Russian Bees","item":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/russian-bees"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Russian Bee Pests & Attacks"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/","name":"Sweet Mountain Farm","description":"Washington Island, Wisconsin","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5167,"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123\/revisions\/5167"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweetmountainfarm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}