The hard truth these days is that the work of bee keeping is like 80% keeping the mites in check. Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible so you can only do it at the end of the season.
And, by the way - natural pathogens exist in just about any population. These very, very rarely led to extinction. There is a media trend to claim the mites are at fault. This reminds me of prior fault yielding e. g. "mad cow disease" - and then the media also stopped doing any further investigation at that point. It's as if they have break points where you can not go past those points. Now it is the mites that get blamed.
So what's it going to do to the honey? Will we have spider venom laced honey?
The hard truth these days is that the work of bee keeping is like 80% keeping the mites in check. Plus all current treatments render the honey inedible so you can only do it at the end of the season.
No. The mites are not what is killing the bees.
And, by the way - natural pathogens exist in just about any population. These very, very rarely led to extinction. There is a media trend to claim the mites are at fault. This reminds me of prior fault yielding e. g. "mad cow disease" - and then the media also stopped doing any further investigation at that point. It's as if they have break points where you can not go past those points. Now it is the mites that get blamed.
Some potentially seriously good news there if it all pans out the way it sounds like it might. Fingers crossed for the bees!
This assumes the mites are what kills the bees. What is that asssumption is flawed?
Nah, it cannot happen that Big Agro's poisons are to fault...
Still the honeybees keep on dying ...
Perhaps it is time to stop blaming the mites for the decline of the honeybees.