Has anyone used the Super DFM Honey probiotic? Would this still be considered a natural treatment?
Hi John,
It appears to be a natural organic method. It not on our local treatment list I’m using … We have mechanical treatment like sugar dusting, Queen selection, SBB, Drone foundation, etc … Non-systemic like Mite Strips n oxide-acid vapor or drip, etc n system with several products in that group.
. I’ve used several organic means this summer to experiment … And hopefully hold the mite ratio down. My mite counts are slowly ramping up as summer draws to the end. At the end of August I will use the Mite Away Strips then retest in mid to end of September. If the count reramps I’ll do a double oxide-vapor because our temps will be too low for other non-systemic/organic treatments.That’s my plan up here this late summer. Here’s my mite counts per 100,200 or 300 bees per mites.
. Maybe Michael, Dee, Dawn, or others might have a more exact/professional idea or Mann Lake !!Good luck John. Keep good records so you can keep track of what best works for you Bro… That’s my 2cents worth.
Ta ta,
Gerald
I haven’t, but as an IBS sufferer, I have a barely repressed hatred of probiotics. All they have done for me is make things worse, or made no difference. I have taken many different types under medical supervision, none of them helped, and I think some of them made things worse. Of course, I am a problem child in many ways, so that doesn’t mean they don’t work.
I wouldn’t try to upset the balance of nature, you may end up regretting it. Or I might end up regretting that you did!
Oh John … On that graph … My hives are the the last five on the right side of that local research graph. My three over the dark black line are 2 @ 4 per 100 bees n 1 @ 5 per 100 bees. And two of my hives are less than 3 mites per 100 bees .,
The scientists have just begun to scratch the surface of what is living in the gut of the bee and what effects those bacteria have on the health of the colony. Messing with the microbes is already the problem. Messing with them more seems like a bad idea to me…
At this point it was more curiosity than anything. “Knock on wood” I have not seen any varroa mites in either of my hives yet. I truly want to try and keep the hives as natural as humanly possible.
How did you look for them? If you were just looking at bees, you probably wouldn’t see any. If you put a sticky board in the hive, you might see a few. The only way to be sure of the mite load is by doing a sugar roll (upsets bees, but most of them live) or alcohol wash (kills bees, but very accurate).
hmmm…what’s the word/phrase, oxymoron, paradox?
As a rookie BK, I feel like a sponge soaking up all the info I can from any source available. That means books, the internet (along with it’s attendant pollution) and a couple of friends who are commercial BKs. I hate to bug them too much as i know they have a lot of work to do this time of year, but i do manage to swallow my pride and ask them a few questions that probably evoke internal chuckles by said parties.
My point: I was at one of the commercial BKs this past weekend to pick up a few Nucs. This guy runs 7,000 or so hives. I asked him what he did to maintain his colonies. He brought out about a 2 gallon container of probiotic DFM. He said his winter carry over used to be only about 50% and dropping. Since he began using the DFM the last few years, his survival rates have risen to 75% or more. Even this year, where the winter was particularly brutal, his local bees came thru much better. I know this isn;'t a scientific study, but 7000 hives is a significant sampling to at least give some pause.
What do you guys think?
Then don’t treat at all… That is very humanly possible.
As far as seeing Varroa, as Dawn pointed out, they are ubiquitous. If you have bees in North America, you have Varroa mites.
As far as the supplement, it does look like they got at least some (and possible all) specific species from the gut of bees. So it might work well.