Thanks for this Jon. I have no doubt Small Hive Beetle is going to be a
significant pest in some parts of England, and the migratory commercial
beekeepers will spread it rapidly (varroa took 2 years to cover the whole of
Britain because serious honey producers take their hives down to southern
orchards in Spring, north to the heather in August).
Initially my main fear of SHB was government policy. DEFRA is notorious for its
"kill and burn everything" policies whenever there is an outbreak of a disease.
In 2001, there were 2,000 cases of Foot & Mouth and DEFRA ended up burning 6
million sheep, cattle and pigs to stop it, and some farms never recovered
(compensation was slow in coming). As I understand it, it proved almost
impossible to stop the spread at first as some people lied about where they
were shipping their livestock, as they were gaming the system to get extra
subsidies.
The scorched earth policy undeniably works, and lessons were learned; the 2007
Foot & Mouth outbreak was contained with much less impact. But at a talk by
Giles Budge of the National Bee Unit a few years ago, he let slip that the
DEFRA policy if SHB arrives in the UK is to kill all hives within 8km (or
whatever the flying range of SHB is) of the initial outbreak.
This is overkill for several reasons. Firstly, let's say SHB is detected in a
physically small county like London. They could end up killing every colony
owned by an entire county beekeeping association. You could wipe out an entire
local strain. Secondly, about a third of hives are not registered on beebase,
so you aren't going to find them all. Thirdly, there are loads of feral
colonies around (especially in old houses' roofs) and you definitely aren't
going to get them all. In other words, unlike cattle, there are lots of wild
and otherwise hidden colonies.
A few months ago I had a trawl through DEFRA's published policies to see if
this had changed. It proved impossible to determine though. I did find a 40+
page document that covered invasive bee pests, but it never said in plain
language what they would do for SHB, instead referring to other policy
documents I could not locate.
Should we be worried about SHB in Britain? Well, probably a bit. But I suspect
that apart from (as Jon points out) our cool, damp environmental advantages,
SHB will not fare well in our hives, precisely because our bees have low
tolerance of varroa. They actively harass varroa mites implying "watchman
behaviour" genes have been turned on. Perhaps I am unrealistically hopeful
there, but Jon says his hives run on natural beekeeping principles have only
minor problems. Hopefully, once varroa arrives in his area (Australia), he will
find varroa are similarly harassed by his bees now they have been trained to be
on the look-out for SHB!
I think conventional beekeepers may have significant problems though,
ironically because they have varroa screens at the bottom of their hives. If
you look at the holes in these meshes, they are large enough for SHB to crawl
through. So if you have a varroa mesh, with a solid floor just below that you
have basically made a safe haven for SHB to hide in your hive. Which is why
I've removed the meshes from some of my hive floors, as I assume SHB will
arrive eventually. (Bit tricky while the others are occupied!) In other words,
solid floors seem best for low intervention hives. An interesting correlation:
bees exhibiting ani-varroa behaviour ("hygienic" bees) seem to keep their
floors clean.
One last thought. Have varroa done us a favour? And will SHB too? I speak of
selecting for survivor genes. When varroa arrived in the UK in 1992,
conventional beekeepers were obsessed with Italians and other foreign bees. If
SHB wipe out another huge chunk of commercial stocks, but natural beekeepers
and feral colonies seem to survive, it may promote the use of naturally
resilient local stocks. My impression is that at least 10% of UK beekeepers are
now no-treatment.
Paul
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Sunday, 24 February 2019 00:25, Jon Darvill <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
First there was the big heat and then came the big rain, not of biblical
proportions thank goodness although the residents of Townsville in tropical
Queensland would be forgiven for thinking so after they had a years rain in a
little over a week. This in a place where it does rain. Further south we were
recipients of rain from these weather systems as they move across to the
south east, typically thunderstorms in the afternoon. It was as though the
Australian landmass had been moved several degrees of latitude northwards
towards the equator such was our weather. Hot and humid turning our normally
dry brown landscape green and almost lush for a few weeks. Ideal breeding
conditions for the small hive beetle (SHB).
I noted Paul’s trepidation regarding a future UK invasion of the SHB so have
attached a couple of links for your perusal. One with everything you could
possibly want to know about the insect and a second which includes similar
information but goes on to talk about management options. Not all their
options are in accordance with natural beekeeping but that will be obvious.
Salient points for natural beekeepers are that the SHB’s preferred breeding
conditions are hot and humid, typically 30+ C and 70% humidity. Looking at
the UK Met service's web site it seems to me that Oxfordshire will be too
cold for most of the year for the SHB to thrive. This is also our experience
in Canberra although here it is usually too dry. So in my hives I sometimes
see a few beetles but the consequence of their presence is negligible. I find
good natural beekeeping methods plus or minus the traps installed in the hive
floors (mentioned in the second link article) are are sufficient in Canberra.
I have not used the traps for several years now with no ill effect. Some
people site their hive(s) in a chicken run. The foraging chickens will make
short work of the larval SHB as they leave the hives for their pupation phase
in the soil around the hive.
http://beeaware.org.au/archive-pest/small-hive-beetle/#ad-image-0
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/220240/small-hive-beetle-management-options.pdf
