# Varroa natural predator?



## J.Lee (Jan 19, 2014)

Very interesting. I find spiders in nearly all my hives. If they have insects OTHER than honeybees in their web I leave them alone. I have been a treatment free beekeeper for four years so I would be interested in any research on these spiders being a natural predator of varroa mites. The spiders I see in my hives are usually inside the lip of the inner cover and I don't think they have very much contact with the bees inside the hive. I would tend to think this spider would have to be in close to the bees to be a threat to the mites. Hope to hear more about this, James.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

That thought has been around for a while. Unfortunately even if you could get several to live in your hives which ain't going to happen there are way to many mites for a handful of those to eat.


----------



## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> That thought has been around for a while. Unfortunately even if you could get several to live in your hives which ain't going to happen there are way to many mites for a handful of those to eat.


The spiders might multiply?

Mike (UK)


----------



## MuttBee Mama (Apr 9, 2014)

I studied these a while ago, and yes, they are fascinating. Evidently they used to be an integral part of all bee hives (domestic and feral) before we created modern day bee keeping equipment. They can live quite comfortably in skeps and are often found in old trees. Historically they were part of the microculture that kept bee colonies healthy and in balance. 

Alas pseudoscorpions (which are arachnids but not spiders) can't live on the smooth surfaces of modern bee equipment, so we no longer find them in hives. More's the pity because yes, they do consume varroa and would go a long way towards reestablishing healthy bee communities. 

Karen


----------



## MuttBee Mama (Apr 9, 2014)

Instead of looking for spiders in hives, look for a small critter that looks just like a tick except it has a pair of long scorpion like pincers that it uses to grab varroa. They do turn up from time to time in home made equipment that has a lot of cracks, crevices and deeper grooves in the wood.


----------



## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

It's been brought up before, and it's one of those pipe dream ideas...


----------



## jerwilhelm (Apr 27, 2015)

Would it be possible then to create homemade equipment that supported these arachnids? Even if it required creating a space for them. I envision maybe making the housing of your brood chamber to have these grooved, or crevices sides. If it meant a reduction in varroa without chemicals seems like something a lot of people would be interested in?


----------



## Royal (May 4, 2015)

In what way do these spiders actually get ahold of the mites? Do they pick them off adult bees as they pass by, somehow without disturbing them? Do they reach down into cells and pull out the mites, ignoring the larvae? Would the spiders waste disturb the colony? Would the spiders overwinter with the cluster of bees? Would the spiders jump off buildings with web ropes and take those offending mites to prison, then go to work as a journalist?


----------



## quattro (Oct 2, 2014)

Eventually, the natural predator to the varroa will be the varroa. Watch the techniques that are being developed to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria and dengue. Eventually, genetically modified mites will be introduced and their offspring will be infertile. No chemicals needed and it is not as far off as you might imagine. The success of the Flow Hive should encourage researchers that the market is immense for a real revolution to the industry.

For your reference:
http://www.oxitec.com/oxitec-video/...-oxitec-make-genetically-modified-mosquitoes/


----------



## jerwilhelm (Apr 27, 2015)

Royal said:


> Would the spiders jump off buildings with web ropes and take those offending mites to prison, then go to work as a journalist?


Come on Superman is the journalist, Spider-Man is just a photographer!!


----------



## lemmje (Feb 23, 2015)

quattro said:


> The success of the Flow Hive....[/url]


You mean in regards to the success of the funding, correct? As far as i know it is not a large enough presence in the industry to actually call it a success. Fingers crossed, but naturally skeptical.


----------



## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

quattro said:


> Eventually, the natural predator to the varroa will be the varroa. Watch the techniques that are being developed to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria and dengue. Eventually, genetically modified mites will be introduced and their offspring will be infertile. No chemicals needed and it is not as far off as you might imagine. The success of the Flow Hive should encourage researchers that the market is immense for a real revolution to the industry.
> 
> 
> For your reference:
> http://www.oxitec.com/oxitec-video/...-oxitec-make-genetically-modified-mosquitoes/


The same technique was used in the ongoing battle with screw worms. The idea was conceived in 1932. Interesting read. http://specialcollections.nal.usda....lection-screwworm-eradication-program-records


----------



## jerwilhelm (Apr 27, 2015)

The screw worm article is very interesting, especially considering the fact this was completed in the 1950s. There have been major leaps in science and engineering since then. Subsequently I did a quick search and found this article which is exciting for beekeepers. 

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/01/prweb12430179.htm


----------



## tanksbees (Jun 16, 2014)

You can't just eradicate an entire species these days, the environmentalists would never let you.

If varroa becomes an endangered species then we will be stuck with it forever.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

quattro said:


> Eventually, the natural predator to the varroa will be the varroa. Watch the techniques that are being developed to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria and dengue. Eventually, genetically modified mites will be introduced and their offspring will be infertile. No chemicals needed and it is not as far off as you might imagine. The success of the Flow Hive should encourage researchers that the market is immense for a real revolution to the industry.
> 
> For your reference:
> http://www.oxitec.com/oxitec-video/...-oxitec-make-genetically-modified-mosquitoes/


Holy smokes though for every time the gene splicers have done something right they have done several things wrong. I would rather them not make any super mites on accident....or on purpose.


----------



## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

This is an even better link. It gives more info on the ongoing efforts.
http://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/speccoll/exhibits/show/stop-screwworms--selections-fr


----------



## Royal (May 4, 2015)

jerwilhelm said:


> Come on Superman is the journalist, Spider-Man is just a photographer!!


Idk sorry lol I knew he took pictures but gave up deciding whether to call him a journalist,photographer,reporter or whatever.


----------



## quattro (Oct 2, 2014)

lemmje-

Exactly - I could not care less if the FH actually works. I was only looking at the marketing response and $ flow (no pun intended).


----------



## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

quattro said:


> Eventually, the natural predator to the varroa will be the varroa. Watch the techniques that are being developed to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria and dengue. Eventually, genetically modified mites will be introduced and their offspring will be infertile. No chemicals needed and it is not as far off as you might imagine. The success of the Flow Hive should encourage researchers that the market is immense for a real revolution to the industry.
> 
> For your reference:
> http://www.oxitec.com/oxitec-video/...-oxitec-make-genetically-modified-mosquitoes/


Most of the mites are sterile anyway, but they seem to multiply like crazy.


----------



## jerwilhelm (Apr 27, 2015)

Royal said:


> Idk sorry lol I knew he took pictures but gave up deciding whether to call him a journalist,photographer,reporter or whatever.


Sorry bud - I was just bugging! He works at a newspaper - journalist is close enough!!


----------



## MuttBee Mama (Apr 9, 2014)

Okay Royal - remember - you asked!!

Pseudoscorpions have been in the fossil record for some 380 million years. There are currently 3,300 species of them worldwide, with territory ranging from the arctic to the equator, from sea level to above the tree line in the Rockies, though most of them prefer the tropics and subtropics. It is the Book Scorpion (Chelifer cancroides) who is of most interest to bee keepers. They are most frequently found in old books, eating the book lice that attack ancient binding glues. If you find them in your books, rejoice. They are rescuing your library! They also eat carpet beetle larvae and clothes moth larvae, small flies and (best of all) mites; all in all a good neighbor to have.

Book Scorpions are tiny - no more than 1/4 inch - brown, teardrop shaped (like a tick), with 8 legs and two pedipalps (pincers) used to grab food. The pedipalps are more than twice as long as the legs and look quite fearsome in photographs! The female produces 20 to 40 eggs that she carries beneath her abdomen. After the young house pseudoscorpions, which look like small adults, emerge, they stay with the female for several days, sometimes riding on her back. The entire brood then disperses. This process, from egg deposit to brood dispersal, can take 3 weeks.

The young house pseudoscorpions molt three times before adulthood; these stages are protonymph, deutonymph, and tritonymph. The developmental period is temperature dependent and takes 10 to 24 months. Adults do not molt and can live for 3 or 4 years.

There is a long historical record of Scorpions living symbiotically with bees. They were once simply a central part of life in a hive. Early bee keepers didn't think anything about their presence in the hive so there was no hue and cry raised when we changed to modern beekeeping practices and the scorpions moved on. It was just another "oh well...." These days it is felt that scorpions are no longer living in hives for two reasons. The first is that the insecticides used on mites will also destroy scorpions. The second is trickier; the modern equipment we use isn't a suitable environment for them. Book Scorpions live in cracks and crevices in certain wood where there is a rich environment of microfauna to feed their young until they are big enough to eat mites. Bee skeps were an excellent environment for them and they flourished. Today, with our modern, smooth wooden or even plastic bee keeping equipment there is simply no place for a crevice dwelling critter to hide. 

In answer to your question about how they eat, yes, they do pull the mites off the bodies of bees. They also trap them when they are breeding and laying. An adult scorpion will eat up to 10 varroa a day. (I should mention they also have a strong preference for wax moth larvae.)

So why not rush out and scoop up a handful of book scorpions and throw them in the hives? Well, first, despite their world-wide territory, they are very hard to find. Second, it likely won't work, and third, even if it does work, it will take a very long time. Even if your hive happens to be made from one of the few preferred woods the scorpions like with enough deep cracks for them to live in, and you just magically happen to have a luscious carpet of microfauna to feed the baby scorpions, it will still be slow going given that it takes up to 2 years for a baby scorpion to mature, and then many, many generations to develop a colony of sufficient size to keep mites in check. 

But if you can do it, it will be awesome.

Most of the modern research on pseudoscorpions and bees is being done by Torven Schiffen, a German biologist and beekeeper. Google him and learn much more. His YouTube video of a Chelifer cancroides in action against varroa will make you very, very happy.

Karen


----------



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good post karen, many thanks.


----------



## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

Informative post. Thank you.

I wonder if they will also eat SBH or their larvae. It sounds as though they both like cracks and crevices in wood. 
I'm going to watch that video now.
Thanks again,
Alex


----------



## jerwilhelm (Apr 27, 2015)

Great info Karen. Thanks for chiming in to my questions!


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Good post for sure


----------

