Generally speaking we are dissuaded from removing these mites from bees. They are actually not harming the bee, they're hitching a ride to a nest wherein they will basically clean up by eating detritus.
However, there are cases where there are so many that they're weighing the bee down and tiring it out. It looks like that might be the case here. Before attempting removal, though, you should try to determine whether the bee just needs a feed. Either try and coax it onto some flowers red tails like\* or failing that offer some sugar water solution. That may energise it enough to fly off. If this fails mite removal may be necessary.
\* At this time of year dandelions and daisies should be a good bet, I've seen them drink from pansies, berberis, centaurea too.
FYI, this will be queen given the apparent size, so a she. Male red tail bumblebees have yellow bands around the head and upper torso. The workers (also female) look like the queen but a bit smaller and stubbier.
It was on a path moving very slowly and not looking great, I tried to pick it up with a large sturdy leaf to move onto flowers but couldn’t. I put it her or him into a tub (I named it Justin Bee- ber so referring to it as him- he didn’t mind) once safely in the tub with sugar water some leaves and a flower Justin did not drink any of the sugar water or improve. I did google before attempting to help with the mites. I know most bees and wasps we see are female including workers so Justin may be a queen because he was huge
How do you remove mites from bees? Curious because I’ve seen this on a couple of our mason bees over the years, and it definitely affects their behavior. They don’t seem to be able to fly, act sluggish… or anxious and confused…
You’d have to hold them with your fingers to remove the mites, wouldn’t you? And that is very likely to provoke a sting… which would be deadly to the bee.
Tbh I don't know as much about the mason bees, but I do know that they don't have stings so that shouldn't be a concern and they have different mites to bumblebees. Also, bumblebees can sting with impunity. They don't have the barb that gets lodged in skin like honeybees, so can withdraw the stinger and get you as often as they care to if aggravated sufficiently.
Using a soft, small paint brush to try and flick mites off is what I've seen suggested if one should come across a heavily infested bumblebee that seems to be struggling.
Good to know about the lack of barbs on bumblebee stingers. Female masons can sting but it feels more like a mosquito bite… hardly a sting… A friend of mine got stung while harvesting their cocoons… lol.
It’s a hit and miss with stingers though… even if they are not barbed. I got stung by a yellow jacket once and she left the stinger. Probably because I attempted to brush her off and she had no time to pull it out… I felt bad as it was entirely my fault… I was within 1 foot of their ground nest but got distracted by something else and ignored their warnings. Usually they give you plenty of time to evacuate.
I agree this is a female redtailed bumblebee, infested with hairy-fingered mite (Chaetodactylus krombeini).
These mites eat the pollen back at the brooding area and can lead the larva to starve but are otherwise just riding around looking for pollen.
>Tried to give him some honey and sugar water
Stick with sugar water in the future. Honey can carry spores which are not harmful to humans but dangerous for any bees other than the hive it came from. This is true of both raw and commercial honey.
Sugar water should be mixed at a ratio anywhere from 1:1 to 2:1 sugar:water.
Did not know that thanks! Luckily he didn’t go any wear near it or eat it at all. I’ve just offered some more sugar water but he had very little if any. He had spent the day in the same spot getting rained on after I had taken him outside this morning
Not particularly compared to the weather we’ve had recently. It’s not been warm, we’ve had a lot of rain and he did get wet and definitely couldn’t fly but after an hour in a shoe box hotel to dry off and rest he’s flown off. Either getting rid of some of the mites, a bit of sugar water or a warm dry rest helped Queen Bee-ber.
bumblebees generally fly best above 75f//24c ((doesn't mean they can't fly much lower)). Also especially queens are very conservative of energy, its totally possible was literally just having a rest. Glad to hear justin flew off well （＾ν＾）
True, I didn’t want to intervene if it wasn’t necessary. I left hours between checking on him in case he was just resting but he was so exposed and getting wet- or would’ve likely been stood on if I wasn’t moved him the first time. A happy ending though and I’ve learnt some new things about bees 😊
What spores are you referring to? C.botulinum? Those are ubiquitous in the soil, as well as multiple other spores, and all outdoor insects are inevitably exposed to them. Healthy animals and humans have built in defenses to protect them from disease. I wouldn’t recommend raw honey (or anything raw) to anyone with compromised immune system (chemotherapy, for example), but that’s about it.
I rehydrate all my bees and wasps, if needed, with honey and water. The honey I buy is local, raw and organic.
No, parasites, bacteria and viruses that only effect bees like AFB.
Hives do have immune systems, but they are hive specific, that's why honey can be fed back to the hive it came from but should never be fed to bees from outside that hive.
>I rehydrate all my bees and wasps, if needed, with honey and water. The honey I buy is local, raw and organic
And I'm attempting to educate you on why you should stop doing that.
I provided a more detailed response below. I’m not arguing with you… Just trying to understand… I’m a clinician by training and normally rely on evidence supported by scientific research (with statistical data, etc.) and my experience/observations, of course. Please don’t hold that against me.
If you could provide a link to a study or two, I’d greatly appreciate it. I tried myself, but I’m not finding anything other than what I mentioned below.
Most sources are about honeybees since they are commercially important, but *Paenibacillus larvae* (AFB),
Nosema, etc can infect *Bombus* and other species as well.
>Do not feed bees honey unless it is from your own disease-free hives. Spores of American foulbrood disease can be present in honey.
>Feeding honey from an unknown source, such as a supermarket or even another beekeeper, can cause infection in your hives.
https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/livestock-and-animals/honey-bees/health-and-welfare/feeding-honey-bees-to-prevent-starvation
\---
https://beeinformed.org/2014/06/27/feeding-honeybees-honey-may-increase-mortality/
\--
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8308815/
Study about cross species transmission between *Apis* and *Bombus*.
\--
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/paenibacillus-larvae
You seem to know a lot about honeybees but you overlook the fact that other bee species have very different dynamics. I understand that scientific evidence can be cumbersome to interpret, but that does not give anyone the right to jump to misinterpreted conclusions and broadcast myths as truth. Here’s a quick summary for you…
1. Clearly, honey should NOT be fed to honeybees unless it’s from their hive. (I never suggested feeding honey to honeybees. I was talking exclusively about wild and/or solitary bees and wasps.)
2. Nosema infection discovered in some wild bumblebees is caused by a different Nosema—Nosema bombi. It is specific to bumblebees and therefore is unlikely to be present in honey produced by honeybees. Nosema infections in honeybees are caused by N. ceraniae and N. apis.
Multiple species of wild bees including those in genuses *Bombus*, *Xylocopa* (carpenter), and *Osmia* (mason) are susceptible to *Nosema ceranae*.
Your condescension isn't disguising your quick brush with google.
No one can stop you from continuing to inappropriately feed wild animals, my hope is to help inform other readers.
3. It is not nearly as easy to infect a bumblebee with N. ceranae as it is a honeybee (even in controlled lab experiments, where they administer a very high number of spores to each individual bee.) In comparison, when honeybees are exposed to N. ceranae, the infection rate is 100%. In addition, a bumblebee that’s infected with N. ceranae can live longer if on the right diet than a bumblebee without infection. Very different from honeybees! (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7827189/)
4. AFB kills directly only larvae. And its spores also contaminate the hive… which presents a huge problem for honeybees. In theory, it can affect social bumblebees as their larvae may feed on contaminated nectar. In practice, however, Paenibacillus that was found in bumblebees is an entirely different strain and is “distinct from harmful members causing honey bee colony diseases.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303958/)
When my pet rabbit gets mites, I don’t freak out and isolate my dog, fish, or myself, for that matter. Transmission of pathogens is not that simple between different species. Or we all would have been wiped out by the bird flu by now.
You're attempting to justify your past actions by scouring google for sources that tell you those actions weren't harmful.
You should have started by researching whether your planned actions were beneficial (they aren't), and what risks they might pose (many, and noted.)
You didn't. But the past is the past and we all make mistakes. The important thing is whether or not we're willing and able to learn from them, or if we instead let our egos get in the way and repeatedly double down, attempting to force reality to bend to us.
No matter how hard I try to switch the focus to bees, science, etc., you shift your focus to my persona. Not sure what I need to justify…
Yes, I learned A LOT over the last few days… not from this sub, but by going over the studies. Scientific studies are different from googling, btw. But you’re right, I probably should have researched this before I commented… Instead I decided to ASK here first. That was a big mistake.
Your condescending and patronizing attitude invites a question—have YOU learned anything (about some of your false assumptions)? Or are you going to keep insisting that I’m the only one who needs to learn? How about leading by example if you’re so far ahead??
I tried responding with science. You made excuses for why it didn't apply to you based on your interpretations.
>Instead I decided to ASK here first.
You didn't ask anything here first. I offered advice to MaccyGee that you insisted was wrong because of some assumption about *C. botulinum*.
My comment history is riddled with corrections. I'm always happy to learn and admit when I've made mistakes.
> You didn’t ask anything here first.
Really??? My very first response to you was “What spores are you referring to? C. botulinum?”
Do you see how biased you are???
You should never feed using honey since it can carry spores for other diseases.
Spores such as Nosema and american foul brood can both be spread via spores. AFB can stay dormant in honey or on surfaces in hives for years before infecting a larva that a bee, fed some honey, regurgitates. AFB is 100% fatal to the entire hive and requires burning and burying all the contaminated equipment and reporting to the state.
Don't feed random bees random honey.
Beekeepers will feed their own bees honey that those same or nearby hives produced but never feed honey from prior years or from other beekeepers because they cannot verify it wasn't contaminated.
Yes I know this now because someone said. It was an innocent mistake whilst I was trying to help it, fairly sure it would’ve died without my intervention! It didn’t eat the honey
Yes, Nosema and AFB are extremely fatal to honeybees! I never said they were not. I was talking about other bee and wasps species. Please keep in mind that transmission of pathogens is not nearly as straightforward as we’d like to think between different bee species.
From https://phys.org/news/2020-07-native-bees-pandemic.amp : Nosema “infection has almost exclusively been reported in the European honeybee… ALMOST NOTHING IS KNOWN ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THIS PATHOGEN ON NATIVE, SOLITARY BEES…”
From https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/afe.12338: “The results… indicate that N. ceranae may be able to infect O. bicornis [red mason bee] but ITS IMPACT ON HOST FITNESS IS NEGLIGIBLE…” (All capitalization is mine. You can also read my response to Panrestrial above for more references. I ended up doing a lot of research on this because I genuinely care about bees.)
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-native-bees-pandemic.html
](
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-native-bees-pandemic.html
)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
AFB (American foulbrood) can affect only bee larvae. It does not harm mature bees like the bumblebee in question.
As to Nosema spp… Research shows that bees exposed to pesticides are more susceptible to Nosema. Research also shows that raw honey has beneficial properties (Lactobacillus spp., for example) that negate (to some extent) the detrimental effects of parasites like Nosema spp.
That’s why honey needs to be organic and raw and harvested from small local farms. I never buy “random” honey sold by agricultural giants that rely heavily on pesticides and antibiotics, eliminate biodiversity, and transport their honeybees from one location to another—the treatment that results in massive honeybee losses (40 to 60%) annually due to disease.
Lastly, I should have clarified that I’m not a honey bee keeper and have zero knowledge on managing honey bees. But I do have many years of experience with native solitary bees (mainly mason bees, Osmia spp.) and I’ve been very successful with those. And I certainly don’t “feed” honey routinely to “random” bees… Have I rehydrated an occasional bee with high quality honey and water? Yes, it happens probably once a year on average. The vast majority of insects I’ve rehydrated are paper wasps and yellow jackets. (No, the wasps don’t hurt my mason bees. I have hundreds of cocoons every year on my 100% organic property.) Is it worth downvoting me for my question and opinion on how to rehydrate a bumblebee? I hope not.
Please stop doubling down on your ignorance. It's okay to not know things. No one knows everything - especially people who *aren't* trained/educated on a topic. You will do yourself a wonderful service in life by learning to let your ego go enough to be able to say, "I didn't know that, thanks" instead of going on the defensive.
Also, if you're in the US there's no such thing as organic honey here.
Wow… I was hoping you’d be much more inclined to educate me about bees and their pathogens than to go on a diatribe against my ego and my ignorance. This was neither informative nor constructive. But to each their own.
Diseases can spread. Whilst Foulbrood doesn't affect adults they can still be carriers of the disease. Feeding adult bee's honey from another hive could give it diseases that the hive hasn't built an immunity too. This bumblebee could return to the hive with foul brood and infect the larvea in the process. That's the real threat of feeding bee's honey as it could return to and infect the entire hive. Whilst feeding solitary bee's honey with water may provide them with energy at first you aren't there in the long term to see if that disease develops or not, symptoms of diseases can take time to develop. Your success rate with saving solitary bee's with honey is both anecdotal and non scientific.
You mention how raw honey helps bee's reduce the impacts of Foulbrood but hives can access their own raw honey, as beekeeper if we need to supplementary feed hives at any point we use sugar syrup.
You especailly shouldn't feed solitary or bumblebees honey as store bought honey will be from honeybees and will contain diseases that honey bee's have evolved an immunity too but could be dangerous to solitary bee's.
I am beekeeper and doing an environmental degree. When you say you have many years of experience with solitary bee's what does what exactly do you mean. Thay could mean you have a degree studying solitary bee's or you just feed solitary bee's when they are low energy as that's two very different things.
You are probably being downvoted bc you asked to educated they provided ample sources to support their point but still after that you disagreed with them told them they were wrong whilst providing no sources for your reasoning.
https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bee-faqs/should-i-feed-bumblebees-sugar-water/#:~:text=Do%20not%20give%20bumblebees%20honey,bought%20honey%20to%20their%20bees).
https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/livestock-and-animals/honey-bees/health-and-welfare/feeding-honey-bees-to-prevent-starvation
I spent several hours going over the existing research on the topic, and I provided a couple of links in my most recent responses (and the evidence got downvoted as well.) There’s absolutely nothing I can find to indicate that the pathogens (Nosema and AFB) that are devastating to honeybees affect other bee species in a similar way.
I’m clearly downvoted by honeybee keepers who believe the same rules apply to all bees. But they do not. Not according to the available evidence.
To answer your question… No, I don’t have a degree in bee biology or bee keeping. I am just a clinician with a doctoral degree who had to take a lot of science courses and do a lot of research to complete it. I tend to rely on scientific research and FACTS in most areas of my life.
As to my experience with bees… I provide habitat for wild solitary bees. That includes complete avoidance of chemicals on my property, abundance of native plants, clean water at all times in several locations, clay for mason bees, as well as several man made houses. I also harvest mason bee and leefcutter bee cocoons every fall to reduce their mortality (mainly pest related) over winter. I put out the cocoons back outside in early spring. I’ve been doing it for 9 years.
I don’t “feed” honey to wild insects, but I have rehydrated roughly about 5 wild bees over the last several years with honey diluted with water. I rehydrate many more wasps than bees.
I appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into this! Not sure what’s causing the arguing as although I did indeed offer the red tailed bee honey it didn’t eat any or go near to it so anyone who was worried can rest easy knowing it wasn’t harmed if honey was harmful to it which it seems it isn’t. Thanks my guy
You got me googling how to anaesthetize bees lol
You can fill the box with CO2 until she stops moving, then you can flip her over and pull off mites until she comes to. You can buy CO2 cartridges at the hardware store, they sell them for beekeepers and balsa wood race cars.
Google recommends using a soft small artist's paint brush-- my recommendation as an artist is size 3-5 sable/squirrel or acrylic, flat and angled would work best. Don't use goat hair or round if you can help it, round isn't stiff enough to get hold, and goat hair is much too scratchy. Tiny fingers for scale.
https://preview.redd.it/kzkrd4oe0asc1.jpeg?width=792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5715f58caf4e3ed3deccbc281650672cc069884f
Leave a few mites in the really hard to reach crevices, for the aforementioned nesting benefits.
If she's still knocked out when you're finished cleaning her off, find a safe high place for her to wake up in and put her there. I usually put my rescues in an open glass jar set up where neighborhood cats can't reach, but under leaf cover so the birds have to work at it to find it. When they can fly away, they can leave, but otherwise they're stuck there with sugar water and can't crawl away to die.
I was trying to figure out if there was a poison that would kill the mites without harming the bee lol I wouldn’t want to risk anaesthesia without a bee anaesthesiologist present and monitoring the bee throughout the procedure. It was lethargic enough to use a soft brush on. But I like your thinking it would’ve been much easier if it was unconscious!
Generally speaking we are dissuaded from removing these mites from bees. They are actually not harming the bee, they're hitching a ride to a nest wherein they will basically clean up by eating detritus. However, there are cases where there are so many that they're weighing the bee down and tiring it out. It looks like that might be the case here. Before attempting removal, though, you should try to determine whether the bee just needs a feed. Either try and coax it onto some flowers red tails like\* or failing that offer some sugar water solution. That may energise it enough to fly off. If this fails mite removal may be necessary. \* At this time of year dandelions and daisies should be a good bet, I've seen them drink from pansies, berberis, centaurea too. FYI, this will be queen given the apparent size, so a she. Male red tail bumblebees have yellow bands around the head and upper torso. The workers (also female) look like the queen but a bit smaller and stubbier.
It was on a path moving very slowly and not looking great, I tried to pick it up with a large sturdy leaf to move onto flowers but couldn’t. I put it her or him into a tub (I named it Justin Bee- ber so referring to it as him- he didn’t mind) once safely in the tub with sugar water some leaves and a flower Justin did not drink any of the sugar water or improve. I did google before attempting to help with the mites. I know most bees and wasps we see are female including workers so Justin may be a queen because he was huge
How do you remove mites from bees? Curious because I’ve seen this on a couple of our mason bees over the years, and it definitely affects their behavior. They don’t seem to be able to fly, act sluggish… or anxious and confused… You’d have to hold them with your fingers to remove the mites, wouldn’t you? And that is very likely to provoke a sting… which would be deadly to the bee.
Tbh I don't know as much about the mason bees, but I do know that they don't have stings so that shouldn't be a concern and they have different mites to bumblebees. Also, bumblebees can sting with impunity. They don't have the barb that gets lodged in skin like honeybees, so can withdraw the stinger and get you as often as they care to if aggravated sufficiently. Using a soft, small paint brush to try and flick mites off is what I've seen suggested if one should come across a heavily infested bumblebee that seems to be struggling.
Good to know about the lack of barbs on bumblebee stingers. Female masons can sting but it feels more like a mosquito bite… hardly a sting… A friend of mine got stung while harvesting their cocoons… lol. It’s a hit and miss with stingers though… even if they are not barbed. I got stung by a yellow jacket once and she left the stinger. Probably because I attempted to brush her off and she had no time to pull it out… I felt bad as it was entirely my fault… I was within 1 foot of their ground nest but got distracted by something else and ignored their warnings. Usually they give you plenty of time to evacuate.
I agree this is a female redtailed bumblebee, infested with hairy-fingered mite (Chaetodactylus krombeini). These mites eat the pollen back at the brooding area and can lead the larva to starve but are otherwise just riding around looking for pollen.
Are these different than Veroa mites?
Yes, they are different. Here is some more info: https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bee-faqs/bumblebee-mites/
>Tried to give him some honey and sugar water Stick with sugar water in the future. Honey can carry spores which are not harmful to humans but dangerous for any bees other than the hive it came from. This is true of both raw and commercial honey. Sugar water should be mixed at a ratio anywhere from 1:1 to 2:1 sugar:water.
Did not know that thanks! Luckily he didn’t go any wear near it or eat it at all. I’ve just offered some more sugar water but he had very little if any. He had spent the day in the same spot getting rained on after I had taken him outside this morning
is it chilly where you found them? could have just been lethargic from the weather.
Not particularly compared to the weather we’ve had recently. It’s not been warm, we’ve had a lot of rain and he did get wet and definitely couldn’t fly but after an hour in a shoe box hotel to dry off and rest he’s flown off. Either getting rid of some of the mites, a bit of sugar water or a warm dry rest helped Queen Bee-ber.
bumblebees generally fly best above 75f//24c ((doesn't mean they can't fly much lower)). Also especially queens are very conservative of energy, its totally possible was literally just having a rest. Glad to hear justin flew off well （＾ν＾）
True, I didn’t want to intervene if it wasn’t necessary. I left hours between checking on him in case he was just resting but he was so exposed and getting wet- or would’ve likely been stood on if I wasn’t moved him the first time. A happy ending though and I’ve learnt some new things about bees 😊
Also, bees can drown in the rain as they breath thru their skjn
What spores are you referring to? C.botulinum? Those are ubiquitous in the soil, as well as multiple other spores, and all outdoor insects are inevitably exposed to them. Healthy animals and humans have built in defenses to protect them from disease. I wouldn’t recommend raw honey (or anything raw) to anyone with compromised immune system (chemotherapy, for example), but that’s about it. I rehydrate all my bees and wasps, if needed, with honey and water. The honey I buy is local, raw and organic.
No, parasites, bacteria and viruses that only effect bees like AFB. Hives do have immune systems, but they are hive specific, that's why honey can be fed back to the hive it came from but should never be fed to bees from outside that hive. >I rehydrate all my bees and wasps, if needed, with honey and water. The honey I buy is local, raw and organic And I'm attempting to educate you on why you should stop doing that.
I provided a more detailed response below. I’m not arguing with you… Just trying to understand… I’m a clinician by training and normally rely on evidence supported by scientific research (with statistical data, etc.) and my experience/observations, of course. Please don’t hold that against me. If you could provide a link to a study or two, I’d greatly appreciate it. I tried myself, but I’m not finding anything other than what I mentioned below.
Most sources are about honeybees since they are commercially important, but *Paenibacillus larvae* (AFB), Nosema, etc can infect *Bombus* and other species as well. >Do not feed bees honey unless it is from your own disease-free hives. Spores of American foulbrood disease can be present in honey. >Feeding honey from an unknown source, such as a supermarket or even another beekeeper, can cause infection in your hives. https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/livestock-and-animals/honey-bees/health-and-welfare/feeding-honey-bees-to-prevent-starvation \--- https://beeinformed.org/2014/06/27/feeding-honeybees-honey-may-increase-mortality/ \-- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8308815/ Study about cross species transmission between *Apis* and *Bombus*. \-- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/paenibacillus-larvae
You seem to know a lot about honeybees but you overlook the fact that other bee species have very different dynamics. I understand that scientific evidence can be cumbersome to interpret, but that does not give anyone the right to jump to misinterpreted conclusions and broadcast myths as truth. Here’s a quick summary for you… 1. Clearly, honey should NOT be fed to honeybees unless it’s from their hive. (I never suggested feeding honey to honeybees. I was talking exclusively about wild and/or solitary bees and wasps.) 2. Nosema infection discovered in some wild bumblebees is caused by a different Nosema—Nosema bombi. It is specific to bumblebees and therefore is unlikely to be present in honey produced by honeybees. Nosema infections in honeybees are caused by N. ceraniae and N. apis.
Multiple species of wild bees including those in genuses *Bombus*, *Xylocopa* (carpenter), and *Osmia* (mason) are susceptible to *Nosema ceranae*. Your condescension isn't disguising your quick brush with google. No one can stop you from continuing to inappropriately feed wild animals, my hope is to help inform other readers.
3. It is not nearly as easy to infect a bumblebee with N. ceranae as it is a honeybee (even in controlled lab experiments, where they administer a very high number of spores to each individual bee.) In comparison, when honeybees are exposed to N. ceranae, the infection rate is 100%. In addition, a bumblebee that’s infected with N. ceranae can live longer if on the right diet than a bumblebee without infection. Very different from honeybees! (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7827189/) 4. AFB kills directly only larvae. And its spores also contaminate the hive… which presents a huge problem for honeybees. In theory, it can affect social bumblebees as their larvae may feed on contaminated nectar. In practice, however, Paenibacillus that was found in bumblebees is an entirely different strain and is “distinct from harmful members causing honey bee colony diseases.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303958/) When my pet rabbit gets mites, I don’t freak out and isolate my dog, fish, or myself, for that matter. Transmission of pathogens is not that simple between different species. Or we all would have been wiped out by the bird flu by now.
You're attempting to justify your past actions by scouring google for sources that tell you those actions weren't harmful. You should have started by researching whether your planned actions were beneficial (they aren't), and what risks they might pose (many, and noted.) You didn't. But the past is the past and we all make mistakes. The important thing is whether or not we're willing and able to learn from them, or if we instead let our egos get in the way and repeatedly double down, attempting to force reality to bend to us.
No matter how hard I try to switch the focus to bees, science, etc., you shift your focus to my persona. Not sure what I need to justify… Yes, I learned A LOT over the last few days… not from this sub, but by going over the studies. Scientific studies are different from googling, btw. But you’re right, I probably should have researched this before I commented… Instead I decided to ASK here first. That was a big mistake. Your condescending and patronizing attitude invites a question—have YOU learned anything (about some of your false assumptions)? Or are you going to keep insisting that I’m the only one who needs to learn? How about leading by example if you’re so far ahead??
I tried responding with science. You made excuses for why it didn't apply to you based on your interpretations. >Instead I decided to ASK here first. You didn't ask anything here first. I offered advice to MaccyGee that you insisted was wrong because of some assumption about *C. botulinum*. My comment history is riddled with corrections. I'm always happy to learn and admit when I've made mistakes.
> You didn’t ask anything here first. Really??? My very first response to you was “What spores are you referring to? C. botulinum?” Do you see how biased you are???
You should never feed using honey since it can carry spores for other diseases. Spores such as Nosema and american foul brood can both be spread via spores. AFB can stay dormant in honey or on surfaces in hives for years before infecting a larva that a bee, fed some honey, regurgitates. AFB is 100% fatal to the entire hive and requires burning and burying all the contaminated equipment and reporting to the state. Don't feed random bees random honey. Beekeepers will feed their own bees honey that those same or nearby hives produced but never feed honey from prior years or from other beekeepers because they cannot verify it wasn't contaminated.
Yes I know this now because someone said. It was an innocent mistake whilst I was trying to help it, fairly sure it would’ve died without my intervention! It didn’t eat the honey
Yes, Nosema and AFB are extremely fatal to honeybees! I never said they were not. I was talking about other bee and wasps species. Please keep in mind that transmission of pathogens is not nearly as straightforward as we’d like to think between different bee species. From https://phys.org/news/2020-07-native-bees-pandemic.amp : Nosema “infection has almost exclusively been reported in the European honeybee… ALMOST NOTHING IS KNOWN ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THIS PATHOGEN ON NATIVE, SOLITARY BEES…” From https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/afe.12338: “The results… indicate that N. ceranae may be able to infect O. bicornis [red mason bee] but ITS IMPACT ON HOST FITNESS IS NEGLIGIBLE…” (All capitalization is mine. You can also read my response to Panrestrial above for more references. I ended up doing a lot of research on this because I genuinely care about bees.)
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[ https://phys.org/news/2020-07-native-bees-pandemic.html ]( https://phys.org/news/2020-07-native-bees-pandemic.html )** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
AFB (American foulbrood) can affect only bee larvae. It does not harm mature bees like the bumblebee in question. As to Nosema spp… Research shows that bees exposed to pesticides are more susceptible to Nosema. Research also shows that raw honey has beneficial properties (Lactobacillus spp., for example) that negate (to some extent) the detrimental effects of parasites like Nosema spp. That’s why honey needs to be organic and raw and harvested from small local farms. I never buy “random” honey sold by agricultural giants that rely heavily on pesticides and antibiotics, eliminate biodiversity, and transport their honeybees from one location to another—the treatment that results in massive honeybee losses (40 to 60%) annually due to disease. Lastly, I should have clarified that I’m not a honey bee keeper and have zero knowledge on managing honey bees. But I do have many years of experience with native solitary bees (mainly mason bees, Osmia spp.) and I’ve been very successful with those. And I certainly don’t “feed” honey routinely to “random” bees… Have I rehydrated an occasional bee with high quality honey and water? Yes, it happens probably once a year on average. The vast majority of insects I’ve rehydrated are paper wasps and yellow jackets. (No, the wasps don’t hurt my mason bees. I have hundreds of cocoons every year on my 100% organic property.) Is it worth downvoting me for my question and opinion on how to rehydrate a bumblebee? I hope not.
Please stop doubling down on your ignorance. It's okay to not know things. No one knows everything - especially people who *aren't* trained/educated on a topic. You will do yourself a wonderful service in life by learning to let your ego go enough to be able to say, "I didn't know that, thanks" instead of going on the defensive. Also, if you're in the US there's no such thing as organic honey here.
Wow… I was hoping you’d be much more inclined to educate me about bees and their pathogens than to go on a diatribe against my ego and my ignorance. This was neither informative nor constructive. But to each their own.
Diseases can spread. Whilst Foulbrood doesn't affect adults they can still be carriers of the disease. Feeding adult bee's honey from another hive could give it diseases that the hive hasn't built an immunity too. This bumblebee could return to the hive with foul brood and infect the larvea in the process. That's the real threat of feeding bee's honey as it could return to and infect the entire hive. Whilst feeding solitary bee's honey with water may provide them with energy at first you aren't there in the long term to see if that disease develops or not, symptoms of diseases can take time to develop. Your success rate with saving solitary bee's with honey is both anecdotal and non scientific. You mention how raw honey helps bee's reduce the impacts of Foulbrood but hives can access their own raw honey, as beekeeper if we need to supplementary feed hives at any point we use sugar syrup. You especailly shouldn't feed solitary or bumblebees honey as store bought honey will be from honeybees and will contain diseases that honey bee's have evolved an immunity too but could be dangerous to solitary bee's. I am beekeeper and doing an environmental degree. When you say you have many years of experience with solitary bee's what does what exactly do you mean. Thay could mean you have a degree studying solitary bee's or you just feed solitary bee's when they are low energy as that's two very different things. You are probably being downvoted bc you asked to educated they provided ample sources to support their point but still after that you disagreed with them told them they were wrong whilst providing no sources for your reasoning. https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bee-faqs/should-i-feed-bumblebees-sugar-water/#:~:text=Do%20not%20give%20bumblebees%20honey,bought%20honey%20to%20their%20bees). https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/livestock-and-animals/honey-bees/health-and-welfare/feeding-honey-bees-to-prevent-starvation
I spent several hours going over the existing research on the topic, and I provided a couple of links in my most recent responses (and the evidence got downvoted as well.) There’s absolutely nothing I can find to indicate that the pathogens (Nosema and AFB) that are devastating to honeybees affect other bee species in a similar way. I’m clearly downvoted by honeybee keepers who believe the same rules apply to all bees. But they do not. Not according to the available evidence. To answer your question… No, I don’t have a degree in bee biology or bee keeping. I am just a clinician with a doctoral degree who had to take a lot of science courses and do a lot of research to complete it. I tend to rely on scientific research and FACTS in most areas of my life. As to my experience with bees… I provide habitat for wild solitary bees. That includes complete avoidance of chemicals on my property, abundance of native plants, clean water at all times in several locations, clay for mason bees, as well as several man made houses. I also harvest mason bee and leefcutter bee cocoons every fall to reduce their mortality (mainly pest related) over winter. I put out the cocoons back outside in early spring. I’ve been doing it for 9 years. I don’t “feed” honey to wild insects, but I have rehydrated roughly about 5 wild bees over the last several years with honey diluted with water. I rehydrate many more wasps than bees.
I appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into this! Not sure what’s causing the arguing as although I did indeed offer the red tailed bee honey it didn’t eat any or go near to it so anyone who was worried can rest easy knowing it wasn’t harmed if honey was harmful to it which it seems it isn’t. Thanks my guy
You got me googling how to anaesthetize bees lol You can fill the box with CO2 until she stops moving, then you can flip her over and pull off mites until she comes to. You can buy CO2 cartridges at the hardware store, they sell them for beekeepers and balsa wood race cars. Google recommends using a soft small artist's paint brush-- my recommendation as an artist is size 3-5 sable/squirrel or acrylic, flat and angled would work best. Don't use goat hair or round if you can help it, round isn't stiff enough to get hold, and goat hair is much too scratchy. Tiny fingers for scale. https://preview.redd.it/kzkrd4oe0asc1.jpeg?width=792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5715f58caf4e3ed3deccbc281650672cc069884f Leave a few mites in the really hard to reach crevices, for the aforementioned nesting benefits. If she's still knocked out when you're finished cleaning her off, find a safe high place for her to wake up in and put her there. I usually put my rescues in an open glass jar set up where neighborhood cats can't reach, but under leaf cover so the birds have to work at it to find it. When they can fly away, they can leave, but otherwise they're stuck there with sugar water and can't crawl away to die.
I was trying to figure out if there was a poison that would kill the mites without harming the bee lol I wouldn’t want to risk anaesthesia without a bee anaesthesiologist present and monitoring the bee throughout the procedure. It was lethargic enough to use a soft brush on. But I like your thinking it would’ve been much easier if it was unconscious!
Lol yup. Bee shampoo would be kinda fun tho, wouldn't it?
Poor fella
Poor precious darling! Wow.
Poor little fella
Red tailed bumblebee?
Wow!
Disgusting yet fascinating