Another big difference is your winter when the bees go
dormant. There's been some speculation about using a
fungus during that dormant period to kill the mites.
It's an organic method anyway and our state has been
testing the fungi here rather than try to import
anything. Trouble is that the weather here is pretty
much the same all year around. There's no dormant
period in Hawaii even for european domesticated bees.
This is the commercial variety most common the world
wide. Unfortunately, it means that a pest such as the
varroa mite that can kill them will also almost wipe
out all of the world's domesticated bees.
Tuesday there was an op-ed piece in the Honolulu
Star-Bulletin from the Chair Women of the Hawaii Board
of agriculture. She says that the board decided that
the mite was already too well established on Oahu to
exterminate. But beekeepers feel that it is possible
to exterminate because this is really a small island.
It's estimated that all bees could be exterminated in a
short time and after a total of three months, clean
bees could be re-introduced from our big island
beekeepers. So the impact on agriculture might only be
3 to five months, and they could plant non-polinating
crops like lettuce, etc in that time.
Mostly all Oahu feral bees except for our hives have
been exterminated. But there is no state effort to try
to control things on Oahu except to monitor for any
hives near the ports and airports. I think that this is
what HDOA is doing on the big island now. The hope is
that they've caught the contagion early there. I could
be wrong but IIRC they want to remove hives within a
two mile radius of the port. But I recall that the
desired radius should really be 5 miles.
Here is the link to the Star-Bulletin op-ed. It's an
example of a policy that is penny-wise and
pound-foolish. The state is in an economic downturn. A
failure of agriculture in the state would make it
worse.
http://starbulletin.com/2008/09/16/editorial/commentary.html
