Mites in Honey Bees

  Written by: Samira Haleemzai

According to the information provided by the Ministry Agriculture of Afghanistan, about 40 thousand Afghans are busy in apiculture. Sometimes they face loss due to the attack of mites on their honey bees.

AEPO’s writer/producer has talked about this issue to some beekeepers.

A woman, a resident of Qarabagh district, Kabul province says: “We had10 bee boxes and we have spent lots of money on them. Most bees died in the result of the attack of the mites and now we have only one bee box.”

Haji Akram, a resident of the mentioned district says: “I started to keep honey bees from many years ago. I had 140 bee boxes and could fulfill my all home expenses from the income of selling honey. Recently mites caused the death of my half bees and the remains do not produce enough honey. Mites are found under bees’ wings and they destroy their wings and then the bees could not fly and other bees drive them away from the box.”

What do people think about the causes of mite in the bees?

Shireen Jan, a resident of Kabul city says: “the expiration of wax in the hive, causes mites to be found in the honey bees.”

Nek Muhammad Gulzar, apiarist (bee expert) says: “When bees collect pollen from flowers, especially from sunflower, as the sunflower has mites in itself and the bees take them to the bee box and they affect to mites too. To know that if the bee boxes have mites or not, we should check the frames of the hive. If the frame were red with blood, we know that there are mites in the box.

How do honey beekeepers solve this problem?

Haji Akram says: “We burn incense sticks inside the bee box and it kills only mites and we also change the wax of hives time by time.”

Gulzar says: “Bees produce broods in the three months of the spring. We should pay more attention to their cleanliness. We should change the bee box after three years or at least we should change the frames of the beehives. There are some chemicals for bees insects. We should scatter formic acid on the top of bee boxes at the beginning of the autumn and this chemical only eliminates insects.”