Following are photos and some videos of assorted insects, spiders, and creatures. Some directly affect the honeybees, while some are simply annoying to the beekeeper.
This page has nothing to do with treatment of any honeybee pests. I have managed to this point without using any treatments of any kind in our hives (other than the wintergreen grease patties the first year) and plan to continue to be treatment free. I started with some Integrated Pest Management by using screened bottom boards on our first hives, but never did mite counts. I now have hives with screen, solid, and slatted rack bottoms and have had equal success. There are so many variables and combinations of those variables that affect the life or cause the death of a hive. I've been aware of feral colonies in the most unfavorable of places that have survived and some in the best of spots that haven't made it. The best solution is to keep strong hives. But then again, I've seen weak hives make it through. I don't have the answer. I was raised around animals and have lived long enough to know that sometimes living things just die no matter what we do. Although I'm definitely not against investigating and experimenting with new things, I'm not one who goes looking for the latest & the best medication, treatment, hive manipulation, or hive design because a few or several hives don't make it.
This page has nothing to do with treatment of any honeybee pests. I have managed to this point without using any treatments of any kind in our hives (other than the wintergreen grease patties the first year) and plan to continue to be treatment free. I started with some Integrated Pest Management by using screened bottom boards on our first hives, but never did mite counts. I now have hives with screen, solid, and slatted rack bottoms and have had equal success. There are so many variables and combinations of those variables that affect the life or cause the death of a hive. I've been aware of feral colonies in the most unfavorable of places that have survived and some in the best of spots that haven't made it. The best solution is to keep strong hives. But then again, I've seen weak hives make it through. I don't have the answer. I was raised around animals and have lived long enough to know that sometimes living things just die no matter what we do. Although I'm definitely not against investigating and experimenting with new things, I'm not one who goes looking for the latest & the best medication, treatment, hive manipulation, or hive design because a few or several hives don't make it.
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First year (2011) of dealing with hive beetles and have them in my observation hive. Have them in 4 bee yards, 2 that are new yards this year. Has been a bad year for hive buildup in my area, hives are weaker than normal, so possibly could have had them before but the bees have managed them better. Whatever the reason, I hadn't seen them before this year. Wish I hadn't had the opportunity to film this, but here it is.
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Another example of a quiet bug killing bees. They must have something in their bite that paralyzes for there to be so little struggle compared to the bite of the mantis. Had seen these bugs before, but I didn't know their name. They are wheel bugs, a type of an assassin bug. Their bite is quite painful to humans, but not serious. It was hard to edit this one. I had over 12 minutes of video and sure hated to cut some of it out.
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Video of another wheel bug, a type of assassin bug, that was on the
front of one of our hives last winter. Took some still shots then started up the video. The disappointing thing about this was that I missed the actual capture of the bee. I had burned up so video waiting for the bug to do something. He seemed to be waiting for me not to be looking. If you look real close as the bug is holding the bee you can see its stinger with a small drop of venom on the end. |
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