ok I got it. it's been a while since some
new compound or some new solution came up to control varroa destructor but
SILVER BULLET? the new Silver Bullet? against varroa destructor we need to
have a chat
welcome to inside I have the TV the show that takes you into the world of bees
I'm your host Humberto Boncristiani the last 10 days was just crazy a new
publication on nature scientific reports claims that lithium chloride is
able to kill varroa destructor the biggest beekeeping problem in the world
how exciting is this? it's very good news! and understand the buzz. It is being around
25 years since the last release of something that could help to controle
varroa destructor, but after read the paper and see all the social media comments
and I think we're crossing the line! we need to go over the paper first let's
see what is that about and then after that let's have a chat. The whole story
started with a mistake. The researchers were trying to use RNAi technology
to control Varroa destructor and to produce RNA you need to use a Lithium
Chloride at the end of the purification process. So somebody forgot to purify the
RNA and that's the way that the Lithium chloride end up in the bee's food. Whoever
made the mistake great job! the beekeeping community appreciated. thank
you! the test was very simple and elegant the researchers collect the bees
infested with mites. Adult bees and phoretic mites only, separate them in two
groups, one feeding with sugar water only another groups feeding with
sugar water plus lithium chloride and what they find was very striking take a
look at this graph: as you can see here the Y-axis showed mortality rate. Zero
means everybody dead and one means everybody survived. The X-axis showed the
amount of time observed, which was seven days. The group of mite-infected
bees fed only with sugar water survived very well
both the bees and the mites. Read lines for mites orange lines for bees. However,
when lithium chloride was added to the sugar water solution only
the mites died. Green Line shows bees and blue line shows mites. Very striking
result well done! so the Lithium chloride was able to be
ingested by the bees get spread systemically using the hemolymph and the
mite ingested the lithium chloride and died. Perfect solution ever!
however observing the bees for seven days only looks like everything was fine
the bees were fine however when the bees were exposed for a longer period of time
to lithium chloride the results were very concerning take a look. As you can
see here bees were harmed when exposed the to effective concentration of 25 millimolar
of lithium chloride bees feeding only with sugar water survived around 35
days in a cage however when bees were fed with 25 millimolar of lithium
chloride they only survived for 25 days. that's a pretty big reduction. 10 days
less. In bees life time for a worker bees in summertime this is like to take 24%
of their life expectancy that's pretty damaging.
so there is any way that we can avoid the toxic effect? Apparently yes the
researchers has shown that if you give only a 24 hour shot of lithium
chloride the bees is gonna be fine apparently the toxic effect was gone.
apparently the bees survives the same amount of time when you give only a 24
hour shot of lithium chloride. That's very good news here, there's a huge potential
here so does lithium chloride work in field conditions? does it work in a
colony level? maybe. let's go over how they did experiment and at the end I
want to wrap this up with my thoughts. First they collect bees infested with
mites so they put a lot of bees together and they separate them in small groups with a
new queen in each of this group put them in incubator for 24 hours to stabilize.
after that they put that in the field so they can start foraging so that's a when
you have these small nooks of bees and then they separate them in two groups
one they gonna feed with lithium chloride another one they're gonna feed only with
sugar water and what they observed they observe after three days that 90% of the
mites were gone that's fantastic! very striking results!
in my opinion we need to celebrate that because that means that there
are a lot of potential here and I said POTENTIAL. I explain. In this case we
have absolutely no idea what happen with the brood. Lithium chloride can be
very toxic. lithium chloride is described as a compound that affected the
brain cells and the nervous system. It is FDA approved to use in humans to treat
bipolar disorder, meaning, we know for a fact that lithium chloride affect the
brain. What happen with the bees' brain? we have absolutely no idea. what happen
with the brood? Does lithium chloride goes
to the food? contaminated the honey? what happen with the honey
contaminated with lithium chloride? if we ingested it, what happen with the
larvae? there is a normal development? what happened with other pathogens under
the influence of lithium chloride in the immune system? Does lithium chloride
influence the immune system? Can any pathogen take advantage of something
created by administration of lithium chloride? My point here is that we know
very little. and all the social media was getting crazy and reading these posters I
saw people even starting to use it. I think this is so irresponsible and
probably illegal. that's what one of the reason why I decided to make this
short video because this can be dangerous not only for your bees but
also for your family. so please don't do it at home.
so what's the take-home message from this whole article? we have a couple of
things that they they were able to show. One lithium chloride was able to
spread systemically through the hemolymph and the mite consume it and died.
great. Two, lithium chloride harm the bees, they hurt the bees but they found a way
that you give only a 24 hours shot apparently the toxic fact was gone. Three
they apparently showed that there is a potential to work in field
conditions. so using mini hives but with no brood, no eggs, apparently they were
able to kill the mites and the bees were fine. So before I go I would like to ask
your opinion about something. so after the third experiment, the
researchers already put the bees outside they spend a lot of time and
money preparing mini colonies and fed with
lithium chloride and after a week theys collect their data about the mites
numbers great. If you were the researcher ,would you follow up the
bees after that everything was prepared? so I don't see why I wouldn't follow up
you know what I'm saying I'll be curious to see what happened
with the bees after that are the bees better? something happened with the brood?
I'll be very curious to know about it. what do you think? leave your comment in
the section below I'd love to know what you have to say. If you liked this video
please hit the like button below and share with friends and family I'm sure
you know some beekeepers that's trying to use it right now so please share with
that guy I think it's important for everybody to know the consequences of
such act and yeah leave your comment below if you have questions I'll try to
address them as much as I can, and I hope you enjoyed I hope this clarify things
a little bit and let me know your thoughts thank you for watching and I
see you I'll see you in the next video bye