I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
- W.B. Yeats, from "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
Children growing up might find it hard to make sense of the above extract from Yeats's poem, simply because there will be no honey bees in the country if the varroa mites are left to wipe them out in their entirety. Irish beekeepers have declared war on the dangerous bee parasite varroa jaacobsoni, which threatens the existence of our honeybee.
Professional and hobby beekeepers are monitoring the little red parasite mites which first made their appearance in Co Sligo in 1997, hitchhiking on the backs of honey bees brought into Ireland when a family of new age travellers brought a hive of infected bees with them from Britain intending to settle in Sligo. At that time the varroa mite had been in Europe since 1962 and had spread to the west coast of Britain before it was discovered that it had even entered the country. (The family of new age travellers have since moved to Canada.)
The first two reports of the parasite were confirmed in parts of Connacht, Graiguenamanagh and Mullinavat about three months ago. To date, Co Kilkenny is covered with the mite (spreading from Mooncoin, now suffering a second infestation), and it has spread through nearly all of Co Wexford, Ireland's main beekeeping and honey producing area. Other areas affected include Cahir, Co Tipperary; Arklow and Blessington in Co Wicklow; Flagmount in Co Clare; and Portlaoise, Abbeyleix, Sallins and Naas in Co Kildare.
Nothing can be done at this time of the year, but at the first spring inspection beekeepers are advised to scrape the hive floorboard. Debris from each colony inspected should be sent to Richard Dunne at Teagasc (Kinsealy Research and Development Centre, Malahide Road, Dublin 17). His department will locate any signs of dead mites among the debris.
The varroa attacks young bees by sucking blood from both pupae and adult bees. They can do severe damage to young developing pupae. Any that might survive the infestation are almost all deformed and malnourished and become carriers of the mite. The drones (male bees) spread the varroa mite from hive to hive. The most dangerous time of year for the spread of the mite is late summer when bee numbers in the hives drop and the parasite is at its most virulent.
Hives play an important role in the pollination of many crops, such as oilseed rape. In the spring, oil seeds will be enlarged by up to a quarter if properly pollinated with enough hives. The later crop is not in as much need of pollination as there are many insects about, although bees do improve the overall crop pollination. Beans and raspberries also benefit from pollination and small nucleus hives of bees - even bumble bees - in large plastic tunnels are used to pollinate strawberries.
Because of the varroa infestation, bees usually moved to Armagh from all over the country will probably be prohibited as they will only spread the mite which at the moment is not in Armagh. for fear of spreading the mite, which has not yet reached Armagh.
"If beekeepers do not test and treat their bees, then their bees will die," says Dan Deasy of the Federation of Irish Beekeepers. Members of the federation have started tests and treatment, as well as seminars about varroa. After the honey has been removed, a chemical treatment usually kills a large percentage of the mites, but subsequent monitoring is vital to prevent a recurrence.
IN the US, the number of beehives has dropped by nearly 3,000 colonies. Part of this is because of varroa spreading northwards, but the Africanised bee (also known as the African killer bee) is also to blame. Africanised bees are the result of an experiment in which a geneticist introduced South African queen bees to Brazil to breed with more docile European honey bees. In 1957, 27 swarms of the resulting hybrid bees escaped and spread through South America and, from there, into several US states. To date, they have killed over 1,000 people.
The African bees look identical to European bees - you have to put them under a microscope to tell the difference. But whereas European bees will only chase a person for a couple of hundred yards and in very small numbers, a swarm of perhaps hundreds of African bees will give chase for up to half a mile. Victims can have perhaps 1,000 stings and suffer from what's known as "venom overload".
Although it has been suggested that the African bee will not travel far north because of cool temperatures, care will have to be taken by airlines to prevent any swarms slipping into transatlantic flights.
If they arrive in Ireland, they would do very little harm - unless it was a particularly hot summer. The theory put forward by experts is that the swarms of africanised bees in cold climates are so small that their stocks of food foraged through the summer would not last them through the winter, so they would starve.
grduffy@iol.ie