Beekeeping Through the Eyes of a Biologist
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The Learning Curve: The Future Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ in Nov. 2009 “I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.” – George Burns Miticides in Development There are a number of new varroacides currently in development by various parties—some fairly close to release. […]
Read MoreThe Learning Curve: Part 4–The Synthetic Miticides Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ in Sep. 2009 Paradise Lost The overall impact of the varroa mite upon beekeeping was recently brought home when I spent time with beekeepers on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Until recently, these lucky beekeepers enjoyed a true beekeeping paradise—abundant nectar […]
Read MoreThe Learning Curve: Part 3 Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ in July 2009 I added a number of updates on May 2015, marking 15 years of successful commercial beekeeping in my operation without the use of synthetic miticides. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent […]
Read MoreThe Learning Curve, Part 2 Killing Mites without Killing Your Bees Randy Oliver First Published in ABJ in May 2009 “U.S. beekeepers crossed the Rubicon of pesticide application when Varroa mites were introduced in the late 1980s. They literally “tore down the fence,” as one wag put it, quickly transforming themselves from anti-pesticide fundamentalists into […]
Read MoreThe Learning Curve—2009 Randy Oliver Scientificbeekeeping.com First Published in ABJ in April 2009 Physicist Neils Bohr once quipped, “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” This definition clearly excludes me from being any sort of expert, since I exuberantly continue to make […]
Read MoreMiticides 2011 Randy Oliver ScientificBeekeeping.com First published in American Bee Journal February 2011 Colony health and production these days is largely a function of varroa levels in the hives—the more mites, the more problems. It is no longer a matter of simply knocking the mites back once a year with a “silver bullet”—it is becoming […]
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