Evaluation of early spring bio-technical management techniques to control varroosis in Apis mellifera

Abstract

More than 30 years after the first infestation report on Apis mellifera , varroa mites are still damaging honey bee health. The present paper reports data from a field experiment concerning two early spring (late February) bio-technical management techniques: early brood interruption (through queen caging) and early trapping comb (through the use of a single trapping comb). The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of both techniques on colony development, mite population growth and honey production during the 6 months following the treatments. We observed that the early season queen handling and technical management of the colonies were able to affect mite reproduction resulting in a lower infestation rate, especially in the brood interruption group, while not causing any repercussion on the honey harvest and seasonal colony development and performance. varroa control / Varroa destructor / trapping comb / queen caging / bio-techniques Corresponding author: M. Lodesani,

Austrian COLOSS Survey of Honey Bee Colony Winter Losses 2018/19 and Analysis of Hive Management Practices

“…In spring, biotechnical methods (excluding drone brood removal or hyperthermia) are not often used in Austria but could be considered as good practice to fight V. destructor with rising temperatures and a prolonged brood period in the future. This was shown in a study in Italy (Reggio Emilia, Po Valley) where the caging of the queen in spring produced no negative impact on honey harvest or brood amount but resulted in a lower mite infestation rate [67]. This could also encourage beekeepers aiming for late honey flows, which they would otherwise miss because the mite population is already too high.…”

Improving the Varroa (Varroa destructor) Control Strategy by Brood Treatment with Formic Acid—A Pilot Study on Spring Applications

“…In a previous study [21], the mite infestation level in summer evaluated on adult bees was significantly reduced by early spring bio-technical management, especially when early brood interruption technique combined with an oxalic acid treatment was used.…”

“…As a result, it is becoming increasingly important to approach new control strategies by non-polluting methods, which can be applied as early as possible in the season, thus targeting the reproductive phase as well [19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. In this sense, the application of volatile organic acids (e.g., formic and acetic acid) in short-term treatments on the whole colony [26,27] or brood [24,[28][29][30][31] by various methods has been already proved useful.…”

A scientific note on the ‘Liebefeld Method’ to estimate honey bee colony strength: its history, use, and translation

“…Later, the method was applied to similar research topics in many countries (e.g. Pietropaoli and Formato 2017;Kovačić et al 2018;Lodesani et al 2019;Osterman et al 2019), as well as in a large-scale pan-European study that compared colony development in different climatic regions and investigated genotype/environment interactions (Büchler et al 2014). Furthermore, the Liebefeld Method was used as the basis to design the standard method to estimate colony strength in the BEEBOOK (Delaplane et al 2013).…”