Honeybees use social distancing to protect themselves against parasites

[fizzle]

Honeybees use social distancing to protect themselves against parasites

Interesting observation. Maybe that's why I still have many bees knocking about under the mesh floor. Time for treatment

 

[Finman]

Honeybees use social distancing to protect themselves against parasites

Interesting observation. Maybe that's why I still have many bees knocking about under the mesh floor. Time for treatment

How their genes learned that social distance idea? Bees make clusters like before. Mites jump from flowers to bees like before. Why beehives die for varroa like before?

But the reseach does not tell, did the larvae and nurser bees started to keep social distances? The researc tells, that old and youg bees keep nowadays more social distances, but the key is, that mite kills brood... Nothing to do with young and old bees

Second key is that mite has legs, and it walk in the hive from bee to bee and from bee to larva. And social distances in the hive are same as 50 years ago.

 

[fizzle]

How their genes learned that social distance idea?

I've not read the full paper which can be found here (AAAS) but the article does say 'Honeybees are a social animal... but when those social activities can increase the risk of infection, the bees appear to have evolved to balance the risks and benefits by adopting social distancing' when compared to hives with no infection.

Fair point that the mites can still spread but the bees attempt to reduce the risk.

 

[victor meldrew]

I've not read the full paper which can be found here (AAAS) but the article does say 'Honeybees are a social animal... but when those social activities can increase the risk of infection, the bees appear to have evolved to balance the risks and benefits by adopting social distancing' when compared to hives with no infection.

Fair point that the mites can still spread but the bees attempt to reduce the risk.

Compromise their winter cluster somewhat?

 

[Finman]

Fair point that the mites can still spread but the bees attempt to reduce the risk.

How they can do, when the result is dead colony. The is no "risk", because the end is the same.

By the help of swarming feral bees have avoided vanishing from the earth. The old colony will be filled with mites

 

[Finman]

Best know bee breed is The Russian Bee. It was brought to The USA 1995 from Primorsky east edge of Siberia. The breed had many habits, how it avoid dieing to Varroa. Main system is that certain situation it pulls all brood off from combs. One strategy is that is eager to swarm on its home country. Primorsky bee has lived with varroa propably 100 years.

There have been trials, that NZ beekeepers have moved from Europe to NZ varroa resistant bees, but in NZ they have not shown mite resistancy so far.

WHAT I MEAN: mite resistancy has been researched quite long time, and we know many explanations. I wonder how mites can keep social distances in the hive. And we know, that the mites will walk into the larva cell, and starts to propagate itself there when the brood is capped.

Very odd explanation that special distance.
I do not believe at all.

Luckily lots of hobby beekeepers have varroa resistant bee stocks and the future seems good.

 

[fizzle]

Compromise their winter cluster somewhat?

The study was carried out between May to November so no winter clustering.

 

[fizzle]

Very odd explanation that special distance.
I do not believe at all.

Luckily lots of hobby beekeepers have varroa resistant bee stocks and the future seems good.

Hi Finman,

I was not involved in the study so cant answer all your questions. The main finding from the study is:

Our study demonstrates that honey bee colonies react to the invasion of an ectoparasitic mite with significant changes in behavioral traits associated with social immunity (space use and social interactions) at both the whole colony and the individual level. These findings strongly suggest that honey bees limit the spread of parasites within the colony by social distancing.

Please don't shoot the messenger

 

[Finman]

The study was carried out between May to November so no winter clustering.

However, in summer bees are quite tightly in the hive. They cannot avoid touch each other. And mites are very quick to move inside the hive.

 

[Finman]

Hi Finman,

I was not involved in the study so cant answer all your questions. The main finding from the study is:........

Please don't shoot the messenger

After all mites kill the hives in couple of years without human help.

 

[Buzzlodge]

I agree with Finman. It seems flawed.
Perhaps there is a valid observation that colonies with varroa behave differently to colonies without varroa but to say this is to protect themselves is a jump way too far.
I would also be looking carefully for confounding errors.

I looked at the paper. " we made comparative behavioral observations on Varroa-infested and Varroa-free colonies, placed in observation hives. The different level of infestation in the two experimental groups was obtained by applying different acaricidal treatments to randomly selected hives. "
The 'varroa free' were hives that got three weekly trickles of OA resulting in 0.11% infestation, whereas the 'varroa infested' hives got only one, resulting in 6% infestation.

My feeling is that the paper contains an enormous amount of statistics and analysis but is built on very shaky foundations. The wording is also sloppy. Their conclusion that this shows a response to the 'invasion' of a hive by varroa is incorrect. It might be a response to the presence high and minimal levels of varroa.
But the fundamental issue remains, how could keeping foragers slightly more away from the brood nest limit the spread of varroa within the hive?

 

[Patrick1]

I have come late to this thread but have read most of them, things like swarming and feral colonies always fascinate me.
Tom Seely in the wisdom of the hive suggests that feral colonies don’t see an anniversary, bees die and so do the mites.

As for all the stats that are being bandied around, most seem to have found something that suits their argument, I think it was Churchill who said “ the only statics you can trust are the ones you have falsified yourself” or Lies, damned lies and statistics

Of course as beekeepers we could look in our hives and report what is happening, a sort of region by region approach, do things happen differently in the south to the north , mine are still bringing in Ivy and still seem a little lite, its all that bloody flying to collect pollen and not necessity stores, brood is still an active area.

 

[Erichalfbee]

However, in summer bees are quite tightly in the hive. They cannot avoid touch each other. And mites are very quick to move inside the hive.

Sometimes if I spot a live one on the inspection board I play with it.....they can scuttle pretty fast

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

After all mites kill the hives in couple of years without human help.

and colonies get plenty of human help to kill them by the look of some of the 'advice' bandied around in certain camps over here

 

[Finman]

But the fundamental issue remains, how could keeping foragers slightly more away from the brood nest limit the spread of varroa within the hive?

When I have my hives, I keep 3 langstroth boxes for brood.

The lowest has mainly pollen stores and the foragers.
Second and the third boxes have brood frames. And these boxes have the most of mites. Upper boxes 4-9 have honey frames and what ever bees.

I have upper entrances and foragers love to fly into those entrances which are nearest brood. So foragers are among brood feeders every many times, where the mites are mostly situated so are situated here the home bees which take nectar loads.

I cannot understand, how bees try to isolate to different groups. How they could do their continuous jobs then.