Apr 29, 2011 
As part of the series (See Part 1) on the Myerstown Method of Beekeeping, here is a quick overview of how I/we take care of Diseases and Pests in relation to beekeeping.
Diseases and Pests:
The most urgent issue of beekeeping right now is in the pests and disease that have been inflicting large casualties on the industry. Because our Apiary (the place where the bee hives are kept and the beehives themselves) is still small, the only real threats we have faced so far are Varroa Mites, hive beetles, and Wax Moths. With that being said, we still look for American Foul Brood, Symptoms of Tracheal mites, and any other issues to which need attention. One big difference in our methods compared to others is we do not treat our hives with any chemicals. I operate on a “Live and let die” methodology. If something is not broke don’t fix it and sometimes even if it’s broke, don’t fix it. The key to a quality pest management plan is to maintain healthy hives. Healthy hives can fend for themselves most of the time and as a result become stronger. Overtime, Healthy hives can develop a resistance to maladies that affect the hive. The more hygienic the bees are the more likely they are to resists pests such as Varroa or wax moths.
Some pest troubles like Varroa Mites can be the normal everyday occurrence and the bees can fend off the mites and keep them under control. The hives that need help we use the Drone Comb method currently, in which you place a frame with
foundation with cells sized for drone brood. The queen lays drone brood in these cells and because Varroa likes drone larvae more than worker larvae they search out the drone larvae first and lay eggs. Once the workers have capped the cells we take out the frame of drone out of the hive and place it in the freezer for 24 hours killing the brood and the mites. Then we take the frame out and use a scratcher to open the caps back up and expose the dead larvae and then place the frame back in the hive for the bees to clean out and start over. In the future I am thinking of testing out another type of trap to which larvae are not sacrificed.
Also twice a year, I use powdered sugar in a flour sifter and sift the sugar on top of the hive bodies to coat the honey bees in powdered sugar. As a result, you will see little white ghost bees flying around. When the bees return to the hive the workers clean each other to get the sweet sugar off and as a result pull off the Varroa Mites that are usually attached to the back of the abdomen. Now this only works well if you have a screened bottom board with a pan of oil beneath it or else the mite gets knocked off and falls down only to climb back on later. The oil pan prevents this. They fall through the screen to the oil below.
Wax Moths can be extremely destructive, but when present in a healthy hive, the bees can keep Wax Moths at bay.
One method I use to control the moths is that I use only Plastic foundation. With the plastic foundation, if they do get carried away and destroy the wax comb, they cannot destroy the foundation and thus the foundation can be cleaned up by scraping off (a good winter chore) and reinserted to the hive for reuse. I prefer “all plastic” frames because when the moths begin to lay their cocoons on the wood part of a frame they damage the wood as well as the foundation. With plastic frames your foundation is plastic also and if the wax moths do destroy the comb, it is easy to just use the hive too and scrap the webbing and frass off the frames.
With Hive Beetles I typically kill all the adults I can by smashing them with the hive tool when I first open the lid of the hive. Each adult beetle can lay 300 eggs a day so each one killed goes a long way to reducing the population.
A healthy hive can coexist with hive beetles but there are still reasons you don’t want to allow them to roam about the hive. They tend to bore through the comb in search of food. The larva eats the honey leaving behind larval feces by which the honey begins to ferment.
One of the best ways to limit the amount of disease and pests, are to avoid Migratory Beekeeping. The practice of moving bees in the spring to one location to take advantage of one crop, then moving them in the fall to a different location to take advantage of another crop can be very stressful on the bees. Some have even hinted that this may be one of the main causes of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The more you move the bees, the more they are subject to pests from other neighboring hives. I keep two locations that I use to split hives. The second location is more than two miles away which allows me to make a split and take it to the new location and not loose bees back into the original donor colony. The second location is in an area that has few beekeepers. There may be wild colonies (swarms off domestic stock) but the outside factors are significantly reduced. I do not move the hives back to the original location because diverse locations will increase your chances of survival if a nectar source fails in one location versus another. Also bees can be managed in rural locations to keep them from as much pesticides as possible. Our area is predominantly wooded. Except for the occasional rancher who puts herbicide along his fence so he doesn’t have to trim or someone’s “7 Dust” on their small tomato patch, there are very little locations of pesticide or herbicide use.
The more you can isolate your colonies the better chance you have of developing a colony that can withstand a lot of the assaults the honeybee is attacked with. The less you interfere with the natural cycles, the greater opportunity you will have of developing a strain of honeybee that is stronger than its predecessors’.
