Varroa is and has been my #1 problem for a while. I hate it. But I can't agree with this statement:
"If these hornets become a serious problem for honeybees, we will find a solution to keep bees safe."
It can easy be too late. Look at what's happening in Europe. They simply can't stop the hornets.
Of course it's more dramatic to show these huge insects. They are impressive and scary. Mites are small and look insignificant. They are not dramatic. They won't generate hype. I understand the frustration as a beekeeper, but don't let yet another problem become too big to reverse the tide on. It is obviously cheaper to deal with the hornets right now, hype or no hype.
Just like the US could have treated Coronavirus seriously early on and helped keep numbers down, but chose to do nothing and now it's everywhere and doing far more damage to the economy.
Don't let murder hornets become the bee's new Coronavirus equivalent. It sounds like they're already dealing with plenty of pandemic-like issues as it is.
To quote George W Bush, who actually took pandemics seriously, "A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire. If caught early it might be extinguished with limited damage. If allowed to smolder, undetected, it can grow to an inferno that can spread quickly beyond our ability to control it."
There’s been many weeks where epidemiologist were sounding the alarms but the CDC had basically zero tests available. The whole world was getting infected and the US was flying blind
Or May be just look at what other Asian countries have done (outside of China) and look at what they did. It’s exactly everything the US did not do
We can't find a way to stop them + huge insects = unsolved problem
This seems contradictory to me as a beek. 5/16 holes as a mouse guard should also keep huge insects out of the hive. It also should be easy to create pheromone traps if it is true that the hornet's seek out the scent of other dead hornets.
On a side note, I see mites as a genetics issue. I would rather see commercial outfits using selection rather than treating with chemicals and shipping packages with weak genetics all over the US. Spearding weak genes is kind of the opposite of Darwin...
Yeah, I don't use pollen traps, propolis traps, nor queen excludes. I'm not sure how they would effect drones. I know drones can fit through 3/8 inch. I'm not sure what size the hornets can fit through. If they are the same size as cicada killers, I would guess 3/8 is too small for them.
Drones can’t fit through my excluders.
Every so often I put a frame
from the brood boxes above the excluder. Old frames or ones with lots of drone cells. I have to check back in a few days to let the drones out or they die and block the excluder. Workers try to pull them though and jam them in the holes.
I’m currently using some nice American made excluders and they are really nice. They are made of wire and are quite quite rigid.
"If these hornets become a serious problem for honeybees, we will find a solution to keep bees safe."
It can easy be too late. Look at what's happening in Europe. They simply can't stop the hornets.
Of course it's more dramatic to show these huge insects. They are impressive and scary. Mites are small and look insignificant. They are not dramatic. They won't generate hype. I understand the frustration as a beekeeper, but don't let yet another problem become too big to reverse the tide on. It is obviously cheaper to deal with the hornets right now, hype or no hype.