The role of fungi in biodiversity and the health of honeybees.
"Research has shown that the beneficial fungi that exists in the honey bee digestive tract and are used to help ferment pollen into bee bread are adversely affected by standard colony inputs such as high fructose corn syrup, formic acid and oxalic acid. (Yoder, J.A. et. al. 2008) This suggests common hive inputs may adversely affect microbial based biopesticides as well.
Additional research has already confirmed the harmful impacts of antibiotics on the microbiome that exists in the honey bee’s gut. (Raymann, K. et. al. 2017) This research implies that foraging bees that are exposed to fungicides, and pollen with fungicide contamination, could also be a complicating factor in the successful use of fungal biopesticides for Varroa control." by Paul Conrad in Bee Culture Magazine.
Here at Canadian Organic Seed Company, we do not treat our bees, instead we grow nectar rich cover crops that feed bees naturally, in 2016 we have planted 33 acres of trees to promote biodiversity and in the fall of 2020, we retired a 60 ac. hay field to a permanent flowering meadow for beneficial insects and migrating nesting birds.
We have observed that certain cover crops intercept the life cycle of the varroa mite and that our bees prefer to drink their moisture from potting soil inoculated with mycorrhiza much the same as in Paul Stamets research.
See Paul Stamets YouTube video about medicinal mushrooms activating the immune system to help treat cancer and the role it plays in honeybee health.
Mushrooms as Medicine with Paul Stamets at Exponential Medicine - YouTube
