I am seeing double if not triple what we had last year and only getting worse......making up cases this weekend for sure!
I am seeing double if not triple what we had last year and only getting worse......making up cases this weekend for sure!
"You laugh at me because I am different, but I laugh at you because you are all the same."
This has worked quite well for me. I have only seen a couple this year and last year had a hive abscond because of them.
Very cool and informative video! I need to give it a try. I just need to find some Boric Acid.
Where do you get the "good" boric acid?
Larry you can get it at Websters(Ace Hardware) here in Walkertown. If you go in any decent hardware store they should have it. They use it as roach poison. I did it just like he did in the video and have only seen just a couple this year. Last year was very different. Larry Im going to call you tomorrow and if I see you next week I will bring you some.
I had a look a day ago and noted that few beetles where in the honey box ( not much honey = not much food, I guess) but they where in the brood box.
I wonder if it is worthwhile to trap ( I use AJ traps) in the top when there is a honey flow and at the entrance when things are a bit slow??
I don't believe that beetles can develop a genetic resistance to diatomatious earth. Fipronil is a different story. Beetles under constant fipronil pressure will surely become resistant. Then those same beekeepers who use it year round will no longer find it effective....then what do they do?
Why is it that we seem destined to repeat the same mistakes.....again and again and again and again?
How can you use fipronil all year long and harvest the honey?
Beemandan; please explain how dead beetles develop resistance. Fipronil kills them fast; they do not make it out of the trap 98% of the time. Those that get out are found dead on the bottom board or top bars a few inches from the trap. But, to answer your question, " what will I do when they develop resistance?" Why, I suppose I'll use something else. I'm not in beekeeping to house beetles, just trying to make a living raising bees. The two are not mutually compatible.
kbfarms; fipronil does not get into the wax or honey and does not affect the bees. The traps allow only beetles in, through very small openings. Fipronil is approved for use in food prep areas and doesn't contaminate by fumes or otherwise when used as directed. As Beemandan will tell you, it's not approved for use in beehives. I wish the problem could be solved by other methods, but in FL, you can have bees or beetles, not both at the same time. We've tried all the other methods, and have found that they don't work down here. Our hives, left unprotected for just a couple days, are beetle farms, and they are here all year long.
"Beemandan; please explain how dead beetles develop resistance."
Beemandan will probably also give an explanation. Here is my take:
The main problem are the 2% which leave the trap to die a few inches away. They will carry a small dose of the chemical. Other beetles MAY get exposed to a very small, non-deadly amount of Fibronil and will survive - thus the chain of resistance has started.
In agriculture we see this all the time ( tick, worm treatments) and the standard process is to switch between chemicals to minimise the risk of resistance. IPM ( Integrated Pest Management) takes this a step further. A chemical is only used when the economic threshold is reached ( eg the economic viability). Using IPM it is possible to use a chemical for many years without a great risk of resistance.
I think there is another issue we need to keep in mind: contamination of honey. If beetles can escape the trap after they have been contaminated there must be a risk ( even if it is minor) of the Fibronil getting in contact with the honey.
I fully understand that SHB are a very serious problem for many of us ( and an economic) issue for commercial operations and I hope that we can find a safe solution soon.
Fish stix - I may not understand the situation but I understood that: "Those that get out are found dead on the bottom board or top bars a few inches from the trap"
If a trap only allows beetles in and not out and if there are no fumes...etc I guess it should be " safe" .
Why is it not approved for the use with bees?
A very small percentage of shb will have a tolerance to the pesticide. They will survive. Guess who reproduces? The next generation will have a larger percentage that are tolerant….and following generations will eventually be mostly resistant. This is exactly why fluvalinate (Apistan) and cumophos (Checkmite) are no longer effective against varroa. We already have a variety of fipronil resistant agricultural pests. We have populations of fipronil resistant fleas (fipronil is the active ingredient in Frontline).
Now is the time to find alternative compounds. Then rotate their use. For those periods that the beetles are at their lowest virulence give them a break in treatment.
If you continue on your present course, you will shortly find your most effective compound (fipronil) no longer effective. You will have to find a more hazardous, more toxic replacement. It too, will lose its effectiveness. And then what? You are not only creating a problem for yourself, but for every other shb infested beekeeper. You are breeding a pool of pesticide tolerant pests.
I’m not trying to be a jerk. This is just the way it has happened…..over and over again…
Best of luck to you.
Beetles can leave the traps (beetle barns) but most die before they do. The pesticide of choice is intended for roaches. If you read the label you'd find that there are two modes of action. The first is by direct ingestion....these are the beetles that die in the barn. The second is by indirect contact. Beetles who survive and leave the barn will have some of the pesticide on themselves and it is spread in that fashion. Is there some contamination as a result of the secondary contact? Probably. Is it significant? I have no idea.
No SHB have developed any level of resistance to Fipronil, Hydramethylnon, or Coumafus. We have tested these chemicals each year since 2001 to insure that generational resistances are not being developed.
These products should be used on rotation every 3 months, and it is best to mix the product with a fermented pollen substitute on a 1:1 ratio.
This weakens the pesticide by 50 percent, but is still deadly to the beetles.
As far as traces in the hive and honey, Fipronil is used in food prep & storage areas because it is absolutely non-toxic to humans. We have all eaten Fipronil on our favorite foods, after a roach or other insect had been in a bait station and made it in the box of lettuce, buns, or hamburger patties.
The trace residues left by beetles that had fed and left for some reason or another (which again is not likly AT ALL, and FAR less than 20%, try an average 14 in 2,000), are far too small to even be compared to that of the food prep area with the roaches.
CD traps are safe to use in bee hives, bottom line. They ARE approved by the FDA and USDA, under emergency status.
There is a lot of confusion about whether the beetles require chemicals or not and what the ultimate threat of the beetles may be and whether or not the chemicals that bee keepers are using are even safe enough for honey consumption.
YES, commercial operations in the south will HAVE to use chemical treatments to control SHB. There is no way around that. Hives are wiped out in 3-4 days in mid-late summer. There are NO management practices that can thwart that kind of on-slaught. In heavily infested areas bees are the ones that are being erradicated, not the beetles...
Those who do not get control of beetle populations in mildly infested area will soon become breeding sites for beetles that will ultimately force ALL commercial operations to resort to chemical use, even in non-effected areas, and the USDA will eventually mandate the use of chemical control to ALL in order to get control of the spread.
SHB is by far the greatest threat to our industry that we have EVER seen. Those who do not feel this way have simply not been infested YET. Chemicals are bad...I agree, but the lesser of two evils has to be decided and bee keepers must united in an effort to control SHB populations.
A few years of good SAFE control efforts and the beetles could be a secondary pest in the US. Genetics are a future possibility, but wiping out hives is NOT the way to develope hygenic results, they are developed by allowing a secondary pest to lightly indrude on collonies, and even this is completely ineffective in any atmosphere other than a queen breeding operation where there are several scientists that are using these intrusions in their own controlled situations.
The chemicals that are being used are VERY THOROUGHLY tested by scientists with many, many years of experience and working environments that allow their tests to be calculated correctly.
Use common sense when treating... Rotate chemicals, use minimal amounts of chemicals to get effective knock down, without over exposure, and once you have treated use indentifiers (such as clear CD traps in the entrances of hives) to keep an eye on the beetle populations, and once the beetles are under control you can treat very lightly only when necessary.
It was first thought that the beetles could be erradicated from the US... but then the USDA realised that bee keepers were so greatly divided about chemical use that the idea of erradication would never succeed... now that we have made our bed, we must ALL lay in it.
The 14 beetles out of 2000 leaving the trap was based on your testing protocols. If I understand it the hive was made of a clear or opaque material and there were no bees, brood, honey, pollen or comb in it. Knowing that beetles hide in the dark and having an environment with no other attracting pheromones or smells, I'm surprised that any of those beetles left the barn.
I have seen shb infested hives, where a trap with fipronil was placed inside and the next day there were many dead beetles on the ground in front. So, I'm guessing that in real life there may be some contamination issues.
I would like to see any official study that states that fipronil is absolutely non toxic to humans. It is allowed in food prep areas when applied according to instructions. Depending on the application, it does not come into direct contact with the food being processed.
CD cases containing fipronil are not approved under any regulations for use inside a beehive.
Having said all of that, I understand the need for southern beekeepers to have some defense against shb. And I believe that fipronil is probably the least dangerous compound. And I believe that when used inside containers, such as beetle barns, it probably is less harmful than many of the beekeeper concocted varroa treatments. AND on one other point we agree…..rotation of compounds to reduce the likelihood of resistance.
[QUOTE=beemandan;575983] If I understand it the hive was made of a clear or opaque material and there were no bees, brood, honey, pollen or comb in it. Knowing that beetles hide in the dark and having an environment with no other attracting pheromones or smells, I'm surprised that any of those beetles left the barn.
Our studies include 40 hives tested 10 times each and these studies have been ran each year since 2001. Totalling 3,600 individual tests, not just 1.
Each of those clear hive bodies were covered with black-out drapes before the beetles were ever introduced.
Yes beetles do leave the traps... and the rate of 12/2000 is an average.
Fipronil is used in food prep areas in two ways... Baited traps (allowing the roaches to enter AND leave), and in direct gel applications beneath counter tops, below sinks and machinery, etc...
As to the exact levels of residual remains and registration for use...here is a link that you can read for yourself. 36 ppb (parts per Billion) in wax & 3060 ppb on honey bees.
QUITE A BIT LESS than 20%.
Again, I agree that NO chemical should be in our hives~! But if something is not done, there will be now hives to argue about.
I will post links to the charts showing the spread of the SHB from 2001-2010. It is not just a problem in the south...Their numbers will soon reach "highly infested" status in all regions and our entire industry will be in peril.
A couple of interesting paragraphs:
Since honey or pollen contaminated
at ppb levels with newer classes of insecticides
such as neonicotinoids (e.g. imidacloprid)
or phenylpyrazoles (e.g. fipronil) are
known to impair honey bee health
High residues in the honey bees themselves
(Tab. I) are often associated with direct kill
from the respective pesticide application, such
as with 19.6 ppm of permethrin (LD50 of
1.1 ppm) and 3.1 ppm of fipronil (LD50
0.05 ppm) (Mullin et al., 2010)