At the apiary where I base my work, I have placed about 50 colonies of bees that I raised this year. Since it’s the harvesting season, I became  distracted by work at other apiaries and ended up neglecting the hives for about three weeks, which was a mistake. Mite damage was observed. This season tends to have a high incidence of mite infestations, so I had hung herbal-based ribbons in the hives as a mite deterrent. However,  I noticed that mites resistant to the active ingredients in these herbs had emerged. To effectively prevent mite infestations, it’s important to  periodically use deterrents with different active ingredients. This is because mites, with their rapid generational turnover, quickly develop resistance.

The insecticide I used this time was something I hadn’t used in this apiary for a long time, so I thought it would be safe. Unfortunately, A careless  attitude led to damage. After applying the pesticide, I should have immediately checked its effectiveness. In the end, I had to quickly  replace it with a different pesticide that had a different active ingredient, which helped to reduce the damage. However, the mite infestation  spread rapidly and unexpectedly, resulting in piles of dead mites. It was truly frightening. It’s truly frustrating to see a carefully raised colony suffer a setback. As I mentioned earlier, there are discussions  about introducing spiders, natural predators of mites, to combat this issue, and it would be a blessing if this could provide a solution. However,  using natural enemies requires considerable caution and time for research and verification. If done recklessly, it could have a significant  impact on the ecosystem, so the process of implementing such a solution naturally takes time.