So, I get an email from the Bee guy up near Findlay about Nucs, but I thought I had emailed him already; apparently I hadn’t. He has some nice stock; some Latshaw hybrids, with some Ankle Biters and Buckfast mixed in.
I first heard the term “Ankle Biters”, at the very first Bee seminar we went to (the Ohio State Beekeepers Association in November of 2016); I remember thinking, “Ankle Biters? Shoot, I don’t want those kinds of Bees; I’ll have to wear boots; it must really hurt to get stung in the ankles! That’s crazy; why would the bees go for your ankles?!”. Ha Ha, but I’m not trying to be funny; I actually thought that.
After researching, I learned that Ankle Biters were developed by Purdue University, and have the behavior of biting off the legs of the Varroa mites, the mites can’t hang on, fall to the bottom board of the hive (or through the lower mesh if you have that setup), and starve and die. Some beekeepers report good success.
That is only part of the problem though, in that the mites love to go after brood too, and attach themselves to the larvae; once the bee cell is capped, the mite will stay there and thrive.
So, I looked again at the literature on the bees we are getting, and feel really good about the Nucs we’ve ordered. These are based on stock that have survived a lot of stress that include being shipped by truck for pollination, and having to deal with Varroa mites; seems that they go after the mites in brood cells, and have other surviving qualities.
The layman’s description of our bees is here, and the more scientific description is here.
Some cool sites on these bees include:
- USDA
- The Cooperative Extension System,
- VP Queen Bees
- Ridge Top Apiaries
- And this cool little Google map.
Enjoy!