I said many times the Varroa mite is the number one enemy of honeybees, however,
after last week I think I am going to change that title to BEEKEEPERS. I was reading comments from
my followers, happily answering questions and interacting with them, when I started
to see a dangerous pattern. I was shocked my followers started to have very concerning ideas
to improve the beekeeping industry. it was too many people with similar ideas and even talking
to each other making plans to find ways to do this terrible thing. That was the moment that
I realized that I need to do something about that, and here we are in this emergency video
to discuss once and for all why transporting bees from one country to another is a BAD idea
This video is brought to you by our fans on Patreon. Hi I'm Dr Humberto Boncristiani and this
is inside the hive.tv the show that takes you into the world of bees, if you like bees and wants to
know more about them please consider subscribing and also hit the bell button so you don't miss a
single video. In my last video series, we are talking about how the queen breeding programs
started in the United States. We are revising the main scientific publications about the subject and
we are far away from finishing it. And because we started to talk about some genetic traits found in
Apis cerana, the Asian honeybee, that make them resistant to Varroa mite infestation, people at
home started to think. Wait for a second, if this honeybee in Asia can already handle varroa mites,
why not bring them over and use them in our beekeeping operations? I'm a genius! Okay,
I got it, it seems reasonable to think that, what is the big deal Apis mellifera the honeybee we
have in the United States is already an introduced species, so why not introduce another one to help
the beekeepers in America? Here is the problem, when a new species found a new environment where
they were never before it is impossible to predict the consequences of this introduction to all other
organisms already living in the same environment and that includes the honeybee Apis mellifera,
that we have here. As a Brazilian American, I have a great example to share. In the 50s Dr. Warwick
Kerr, a famous scientist, trying to improve the beekeeping industry in Brazil also have another
wonderful idea. Hummm... the European honeybees Apis mellifera brought to America are not adapted
to the tropical environment of Brazil, maybe that's why the honeybees here in Brazil are not
performing well. Why not bring African honeybees to Brazil to improve the beekeeping industry?
I'm a genius! just like my dad like to say, hell is full of well-intended people. In 1956
Dr Kerr personally brought honeybee queens from South Africa Apis mellifera scutellata,
a different race of Apis mellifera, and started to experiment with them in Brazil. Long story short,
the queen escaped and now we have Africanized honeybees taking over all the Americas. Did
they improve the beekeeping industry? well yes, I cannot deny there was a big improvement but
not totally because of the new race of Africanized bees introduced but also because beekeepers were
forced to become better beekeepers. However, I am sure all the bad consequences that include
dead people and many other animals were not included in Dr. Kerr's calculations. By the way,
if you wanted to know everything about Africanized honeybees in America please sign up for my email
list because my online course is almost ready and it's going to be released at the end of this year,
sign up to my email list so you can get updates. The case of Africanized bees is a
great example of how unpredictable moving bees around can be the transport of Apis cerana,
a completely new honeybee species in America, could be devastating. Let's start talking about
what they carry with them. Honeybees can carry lots of pests and pathogens. One of the most
problematic introductions that we scientists can think of would be the introduction of another
terrible mite, Tropilaelaps. Tropilaelaps are a much more dangerous threat to honeybees
than varroa mites. Take this recent example, just a couple years after the introduction of
Tropilaelaps to Pakistan, Pakistan lost almost 100% of its honeybee colonies to this pest,
not a joke. We're talking about a threat capable to dismantle the beekeeping industry in the
United States. Tropilaelaps reproduce more and faster than varroa and can carry several of the
same viruses varroa mites can carry. I made a video about Tropilaelaps a long time ago,
way before Dr. Sammy Ramsey started researching them. Please take a look at the video,
it is old and needs some updates but it's still good to learn how to differentiate
them from Varroa mites. So let me just reemphasize that Tropilaelaps is only one problem. Honeybees
can carry different things with their viruses, bacteria, and fungi. For you to have an idea how
many pests and pathogens a honeybee can bring with them you just need to go to this amazing website,
and yes this is a shameless self-promotion, where myself together with Dr. Jamie Ellis from
the University of Florida and a great team of other scientists put together a website
where everybody can go and see all the pest and pathogens that affect honeybee Apis mellifera,
visit wordhoneybeehealth.com and check it out all other problems that transporting bees can
carry with them. The introduction of a new species is a big problem because Apis cerana can carry a
variety of different pathogens and pests that the honeybee here Apis mellifera does not have
any protection against. They will for sure damage the beekeeping industry here pretty bad. So if you
are one of these people at home considering the idea to transport bees from Asia to America please
stop, this is a terrible idea! and you don't want to be responsible for a catastrophe. Please stop!
The second problem with the introduction of Apis cerana would be the competition
between the two species. Now you have another honeybee species, not very good for beekeeping,
competing for the same resources. Apis cerana don't grow well as we're normally used with Apis
mellifera and also they swarm like hell and abscond a lot. A true nightmare for
American beekeeping practices. But that's not the only problem. Interspecific mating between
Apis cerana and Apis mellifera might occur, with various outcomes, ranging from hybridization to
reproductive interference. To explain that well I will need a whole video series about that,
but long story short, Apis mellifera and Apis cerana, living in the same area could potentially
inhibit each other's normal development putting at risk, their own survival. The introduction of
biological material is always risky and needs to be done carefully after a well-calculated
risk assessment. The case of Brazil is not a good example of how things should be done and
there is a change, the release of African bees was premeditated, as I discussed in
my online course. I just come from the Georgia beekeeping association meeting in Gainesville,
where I met Dr. Mohammed Abburaki from the USDA ARS in Beltsville, and in his presentations,
he showed how genetically homogeneous the honeybee population in the United States is. Apparently,
more than 90% of Apis mellifera from the United States is the same haplotype meaning that there
is not much genetic diversification in the U.S population. The lack of genetic diversification
in the honeybee population in the United States is a big problem and, to me, explains why most
of the queen breeding programs tend to fail. it is hard to select something when you don't
have diversity and we might need to think about introducing different genetic materials into the
U.S population to perhaps help the beekeeping industry, but this is a very complicated issue
just as I mentioned here, there is a lot of risks, you cannot predict things very well,
but this is a subject for another video. We have a lot to talk about those things in
the future and for now please watch this video right here to learn more about bees and I will
see you in the next video, inside the hive.tv the show about bees, see you guys next week