Dr. Zachary Lamas Interview, Counting Varroa Mites on Drones rather than Nurse Bees. Did you know?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Welcome to another episode of Interviews with Experts.
In this interview, Frederick Dunn visits with Dr. Zachary S. Lamas of the University of Maryland to discuss how and why varroa destructor mites might be demonstrating a preference for the bodies of young drone honey bees.
What's that mean for the backyard beekeeper?
I have my own ideas regarding how I plan to use this information. See my explanation in the opening of this video: • Backyard Beekeeping Q&...
Please come back to this video description in the future for more links related to this important research.
Edit: what a great interview Fred , I will watch for this young Dr. Now , and it’s inspired me to make a learning yard , I was told to make a difference that you need a minimum of 100 colonies , so I better get to building!! Again , great interview Fred !
What an impressive young man! You sure know how to recognize them, M Dunn. You did it again. One’s IQ is something but without hard work, focus and determination one goes nowhere! But above all to be noted I think is his humility and self detachment! That is what impresses me the most.
I especially appreciated how he sees the little backyard keepers. He helps me confirm the role that I always intuitively thought that the hope was in the backyard beekeepers, the commercial Beekeepers being too involved in making ends meet. I can’t thank you enough for letting through your questions, shine not only the intellectual accomplishments of your guests but also the person they are.
Thank you, Suzanne! I think you know a thing or two about achieving academic goals also. I appreciate it :)
Common sense, actually. Just didn't realize the drone as the carrier of cross hive mites. We all are told drones are like your couch buddies. Just was in plain sight, and like several truthful insights, we humans forget the answers can be in sight. Haven't started yet. Just got my suit. Need to get me a jacket. Got some lumber to start building hives. Hopefully, this summer will be ready for first bees 2024.
I enjoyed hearing about Dr. Lamas life's road to research. I have often wondered what journey a person takes to get to the science of any study. Thank you Zachary and I wish you success in your studies and hope we all learn to be better "Keepers of the Bees."
Thanks for the interview, I learned a lot. I will be trying a green frame in a cage and will let you know what I find...Deb
Great interview, I really liked his going into detail about life experiences and how they can help you on everything in your life going forward. His talking about the time frame of mites surviving off of the bees in the lab of 2Hrs. @ 50% mortality and 4Hrs. @ near 100% mortality made me think about having seen people do powdered sugar shakes on the bees in the hive to promote hyper cleaning of the bees. Is that something you have tried? I guess that would be best done with a screened bottom and a tray though.
Screened bottom boards help a lot. He also mentioned that they dried out fast, in other conditions, the mites can live for days with no host, so all environmental conditions have to be considered.
Thank you for this presentation! Dr Lamas what an incredible story from a very humble human being! I am interested in the chart that was mentioned but I can’t remember the name of the person who created it…I am kicking myself now because I was just at Cider Mill in VT last summer and didn’t see any❤ of Mike Palmers honey!
Did you see honey from other producers there? I love that place :)
@@FrederickDunn I don’t remember noticing honey. It was very crowded though so I hurried thru. Donuts were fabulous though! Cold Hollow Cider Mill. Great cider also!
great presentation. He is as nice in person as he was in this presentation. His parents are very quiet and a pleasure to talk with. I can see why they helped him so much as they are very good people.
Hi Dale, thanks for that bit of information! He's got great parents who support him!
I have some feeders that the bees would force their way into the jar, I fix it by supergluing 1/8 hardware cloth over the opening.
Wow, what a great interview. Thank you both for the questions asked and answers given, I was greatly blessed, informed, and worth every minute of my time.
If there is anything I can do to help collect Dara, I would be happy to. I have 10 colonies. West michigan
Awesome new information that makes since. It seems that a queen excluder entrances might keep out all the outside drones, what are your thoughts?
Forward to Dr Zach, re the dog incident! 😅
(th-cam.com/video/YXBz4jchuWs/w-d-xo.html)
Trivia!
Fred and Dr. Lamos, thank you so much for this fine interview. I learned so much from it. Dr. Lamos, it is neat to see the passion you have for not only honeybees, but for teaching others. I loved the fact that you could work with your parents and they were so enthusiastic about working with you. That is something you will always cherish. I can't wait to see and hear what you work on next. Fred, thanks again for the outstanding interviews you do that teach us so much. This interview has given me some insight on how to be a better beekeeper and to be more concerned with each individual colony. Thanks again.
Thanks, Rob! :)
Am gonna really watch the drones this year. May even rethink my OAV treatment timeframe to coordinate with the highest emergence of the drones. Am curious to see if when dearth hits us in July/August , will that earlier treatment schedule makes a difference in the mite population. And thnx so much for this interview Fred! I REALLY enjoyed it.
I can’t take my eyes off the bow, coming out of the researcher’s head!
Very interesting info. As a beginning beekeeper I’m all ears. Thank you.
Might be good if he shifted his computer just a bit so the bowl isn’t sprouting out of his head tho…
Once you see it, you can't un-see it.
Frederick can find the merits of the case and we wish him and others with all our hearts that this work will bring a breakthrough in the fight against the Varoa mite. This is very likely. For us, it is already a success that Frederick successfully included the community (beekeepers) in this stage . This was also heard from Dr. Zachary Lamas who did the incredible work counting and manually selecting infected drones 😄. Amazing how did he do it?
Thank you for what you do and if you need anything else from our side, let us know. Any special cages for further research - we will always make it for you and send it where needed. We are already doing it and we are happy about it 🙂.
Thank you so much! You have really provided the perfect tool just in time for this research. :)
Controlling mite populations by removing drones/drone brood has some considerations:
1. Removing drone brood alone will reduce mite populations, but probably not enough to provide good control. However, now the remaining mite population will enter worker brood cells.
2. Removing live drones (assuming most phoretic mites are on the drones) will reduce mite populations, but probably not enough to provide good control
3. A single OAV treatment (assuming most phoretic mites are on the drones) should be roughly equivalent to #2 where all live drones are removed. Again, we know this does not provide good control.
4. To accomplish #2, all live drones could be removed by shaking the entire colony through a box with a queen excluder at the bottom. Laborious, but it would work.
5. Removing all drone brood AND live drones should be a fairly strong reduction of mite population. OR, removing all drone brood AND a single OAV treatment should also be good.
6. HOWEVER - I THINK WE NEED TO BE VERY CAREFUL when we talk about ideas which remove or significantly reduce drone populations in a hive. If you still have mite populations, without drones acting as the buffer, the mites will then infest more worker brood/bees. It is unknown what other possible negative effects might occur in the colony if drones are removed. It is possible that the queen is then redirected to spend her time laying drone eggs to replace the lost drones, resulting in a reduction in worker brood. Also, it is critical that we have large/healthy DCAs for good queen mating.
You can certainly find out how that goes. According to his studies, very few mites remained on the worker brood and on the nurse bees when these young drones were present. The question would be how far does the activity take down varroa numbers. Any remaining mite will seek resources and reproduction opportunities.
On day 2-3 of a hatched trapped drone frame, would it be advisable put them in a smaller sealed box and OAV them, wait say :30 and then release the frame of treated drones back to the parent hive.
Lots of testing potential. I'm not sure that 30 minutes post OAV is enough time for that to work, but you could try it out.
You could time treat colonies as they are hatching out their first drone brood in the spring. A one month treatment with thymol could work wonders then.Drones are being killed off because of beekeeping practices and we wondering why we have such poor mating.
I don't have poor mating issues here, but in other locations where pickings are slim, that could be an issue.
What an amazing interview!
Great interview. I enjoyed having Dr. Lamas speak to our Bee club here in Central Virginia a few weeks ago. Lots of information for a 3+ year beekeeper.
Glad you enjoyed it! I hope things are going your way with your backyard operation! Thanks for stopping in and leaving a comment :)
Thank you Fred for all the hard work.
Wow! This is really great stuff. Thanks to Dr. Lamas and to you Fred. Really awesome interview!
I'm glad you enjoyed it, and it's always nice to see our comments :)
That was really quite special!
Great interview, thank you for sharing this.👍 I just figured the mites liked the boys better kuz they were fat and slow compared to their sisters.😁
Tbh, that would be an incredibly cool reason why mites prefer drones. *movie scene* mite takes a long drag on a cigarette, turns back to the late Barbara Walters, Barbara, look, they are just fat and slow, that's the reason, another puff...that's it.
@@zacharylamas8016 I just figured fat and slow made for easier targets.😂Thanks for all the work you all are doing.👍 Have a great day.
Hi Fred,
What a role model… what a life of experiences… thank you both for the enlightenment on the work being undertaking. I believe we are now closer to having dominance over VDM… maybe Australia has a chance of eradicating VDM with help of CSIRO.
🍻 Johno
Blaspheme at 53:42 ..you should edit that out in case kiddos listen to this..dont wanna scandalize the innocents.
Thanks for letting me know...
Frank I would highly suggest you don't listen to my other videos online then
@@zacharylamas8016 sort yer life out bro.
Swarms of course spread mites too.
Very rarely, but they certainly can, and this is why I always recommend treating a newly hived swarm with OAV on or about the 8th day in their new box.
This was a GREAT interview! Thanks so much for talking with Dr. Zak. I had watched a previous presentation by him on the same subject but this added more information and different dimensions.
Glad you enjoyed it!
im wanting a big drone picking tweezer,while this time of drone increase, and ill use dawn ultra dishsoap in my test jar, see what i find as far as mite loads ,on drones only
Good luck, Mark, I'm glad you're inspired :)
Informative. Thanks Fred.
Good interview Fred, Enjoying the series, very good people you have on here. Take Care Fred
Thank you so much, I'm glad you had the time and interest to watch :)
One week in and my Bees seem to be doing Great.
Good afternoon Mr. Dunn, I will receive my 5 frame Nuc in the next 3 weeks here on Long Island, should I checker board in a drone frame when I transfer them in my VEVOR or wait until they are established and stronger? Or next spring? Thx Capt Brian.
I wouldn't checkerboard that nucleus hive. Please just let them build up normally. They wouldn't likely produce many drones until they are at full strength.
I should’ve pointed out to combat mites.
This is so good. Thank you, Dr. Lamas
Cutting drone frames are not new, in EU it is practiced by hobbyist beekeepers since decades.. only the professionals don't do it. Do you know why?
Our bee institutions proposed total brood(frames) removal TBR instead. TBE is done after last summer harvest, but can be done as a biological mite/virus/pathogen removal after spring buildup.
You may have missed the findings covered in this interview. Yes, drone frames have been used to mitigate mites for a long time. What's new is the attraction to newly emerged drones, and a preference for 2-3 day old drones over nurse bees by varroa destructor mites. Until Dr. Lamas did this study, that was not published anywhere else. Commercial beekeepers don't practice drone removal as part of mite mitigation simply because it's too expensive when they can simply treat all of their hives with miticides. So, just to be clear, it's the drones after emergence that are the focus of this study.
OK, very thought provoking video. So many new thoughts to process. Very good information.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you :)
@@FrederickDunn Hi Fred, had a hive last fall that need a queen to go out to be mated. When I opened the hive in late October I noticed a unusual high number of drones. Not thinking, I figured something was wrong. So I just combined it with another failing hive. Well the combined hive is still living. It was too much of a leap for me to think she had brought all those guys home with her. But after hearing your story it dose make perfect sense. I have seen that before. Just never connected the dots. Virgin queens are few and far between later in the fall.
Amazing video 🤩🤩🤩🤩
great interview
Very excited when I saw this!
I'm so glad, I hope you found some useful information in the presenation :)
Another great one Fred 👍👍👍👍!
Glad you enjoyed it, the learning never stops, and that's great :)
Good stuff
Glad you enjoyed it. :)