How We Grow

2020 July/Aug How We Grow

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A L M O N D O R C H A R D 2 0 2 5 G O A L S PEST MANAGEMENT Almond Board of California 6 be enough. Canadian beekeepers, for instance, developed indoor winter storage for bee colonies decades ago to protect their bees. Temperature control is also important in warmer places or during unusually warm spells – a few warm days in December can spur bees out of their inactive period too early, causing them to start flying around in search of forage long before there is enough food available to support them. "We beekeepers call it 'flying and dying,'" said Buzz Landon, who recently built a cold storage facility for his bees near Oroville. "There's nothing out there for them to eat. All they're doing is burning calories by flying around looking for food – that's just the way they're wired to act when it's warm out." Whether their hives are indoors or outside, an ideal temperature for bees who are overwintering is right around 40 degrees Fahrenheit, Hopkins said. Indoor, refrigerated storage helps solve the temperature problem and more, including beekeepers' ability to time the release of their bees to when forage is readily available. Early research also shows that indoor storage reduces beekeeper costs, and moving bees indoors, beekeepers can also prevent theft, a persistent problem in California since hives are often stored outdoors in unsecured, rural areas. Spring (and maybe fall) break for bees With benefits of indoor storage during the winter well established, Hopkins said he is excited to investigate whether those benefits can be increased by using cold storage strategically at other times of year, such as in the spring, right after almond pollination, and in the fall, after honey production. He hopes this research will be a game changer for the nation's honey bees, who are locked in an epic battle with their worst enemy, the Varroa mite. These tiny mites invade hives and wreak havoc by attaching to the bodies of bees and sucking out their precious fat deposits. In the process, the mites also spread deadly viruses to the bees – the effect is so severe that the parasites can cause an entire bee colony to collapse. Finally, mites feed and lay their eggs in the same cells where the queen bee places her eggs so that, as the bee larvae are about to mature into adult bees, the mites can climb into their cells and start attacking the developing bees. As a result, when a bee emerges from its birthing cell, it is already infested. Beekeepers treat to control mites, but miticides aren't always effective and can negatively impact the bees themselves. Further complicating matters, worker bees seal off birthing cells where larvae develop into mature bees – that cap seal is meant to protect developing bees, but once sealed it also protects the mites that have snuck inside the cells from miticide chemicals. Hopkins hopes his research will demonstrate a better way to beat mites and turn the tide in favor of the bees. In May, immediately after 48 colonies of bees finished apple pollination, he moved them into cold storage. Instead of the usual outdoor treatment – three weeks of supplemental feeding and miticide sprays – the bees were immediately refrigerated for about 20 days. This process brings a halt to egg laying and no supplemental feeding is needed, saving costs for labor and materials. Bees already at the larval stage continue to maturity. When the spring break is over, nearly all the maturing bees have emerged and only a tiny portion of the bee birthing cells remain unsealed – leaving mites nowhere to hide. "The goal is to get rid of 97 percent of the capped brood where the mites reproduce and hide out," Hopkins said. "We take away all their hiding places so we can hit them all with a single treatment. We can then treat and feed the bees just one time when they come out." When this effort works, the bees end up healthier and raring to go for honey production season, the mites end up dead, the beekeeper saves money on labor and supplemental food and miticide use is reduced by more than two-thirds. That's a huge improvement across the board, Hopkins said. Washington State University researchers lined the refrigerated cargo containers with power and ethernet cables connected to sensors to monitor bee colonies during their stay in cold storage. Photo courtesy of Brandon Hopkins Continue on page 7 "This is the biggest shift in Varroa mite management that we have in front of us; this could be our big leap forward in the near term." — Josette Lewis

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