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The unfeeling bastards, BB2 and DGP North, brought this up in response to Earl Scruggs passing away. Mister North had an interesting comment to add to this accursed mess:
I get my honey from a local third generation beekeeper. I asked him about the hive die offs. He told me that bees, like ants, use fulvic acid for defense against mites that attack them when they're in their dormant state.This sort of thing is turning out to be the story with just about everything nowadays, innit?
The chemical industry that "supports" bee keepers came up with the idea to use strips covered with a chemical that hangs in the hive to better guard the bees in the dormant season.
He tried it. After the first dormant season he checked his hives and found that the dead mites on the bottom tray were bigger than normal and that he lost 10% of his hive. Normal die off in the dormant season he said, was around 8%, but up until that time he never lost more than
2% of his hives.
This guy is very meticulous, his extraction room is like a surgical room, stainless steel everywhere.
The next year he checked the hives again and found that the mites seemed to be mutating, getting bigger and stronger. He lost 15% of his hives that season. He took some of the mites that he found to an old friend of his (another beekeeper) and they figured that the chemical strips the industry was pushing were responsible for the changes in the mites. The chemical industry just changed the chemicals used on the strips. Same thing, they work the first season then after that the mites seem to become immune to them.
He and his old friend went out and bought misters and used them in their hives with fulvic acid. It may be worth noting that fulvic acid can be bought for pennies on the gallon, it's a by product in the chemical industry.
He's back to only losing 1-2% of his hives per season and the DEAD mites on the bottom trays are normal again. The chemicals for the strips has been changed many times since.
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