News
2016 Vita Photo Competition
Photo: Sadie Illett
Photographers with an interest in honeybees and beekeeping are invited to enter the fifth annual Vita photo competition.
Winners’ photographs will appear in the 2017 Vita Calendar and be featured in Vita’s monthly newsletters. All winners will receive a copy of the limited edition calendar and one outright winner will also receive a cash prize plus beekeeping products. The competition will be judged by an international panel of beekeeping specialists and suppliers.
Secrets of resistant varroa revealed
Honeybee with Deformed Wing Virus symptoms and varroa mite on thorax. Photo: Sandra Blackmore
New research by Rothamsted has revealed the different gene mutations that have enabled varroa mites to become resistant to acaricides, including pyrethroids (such as the active ingredients of Apistan and Bayvarol). The findings have also helped explain Vita’s earlier observations about differing patterns of resistance across the world.
Tau-fluvalinate is a pyrethroid that can kill vulnerable mites by overstimulating their nervous systems. It interferes with sodium channel proteins that are involved in generating electrical signals in nerve cells.
Earlier research showed that resistance to tau-fluvalinate in central and southern England evolved through a mutation of a single base in the varroa’s DNA. This latest research has shown that a different mutation evolved in resistant varroa mites in the USA.
Dr Max Watkins, Technical Director of Vita (Europe) Ltd, explained: “In our ongoing studies of resistance to pyrethroids, we noticed that the pattern of resistance in the USA was different to that of the UK which was different again to that of continental Europe. We have long suspected that different mutations are responsible for these variations.
Results of 2015 Vita Photo Competition
Hamish Symington
Vita’s 2015 international photo competition attracted the largest numbers of entries yet with submissions from people on five continents.
The overall winner is Hamish Symington with his image of two bees, each with its proboscis extended, drinking nectar from comb.
Fourteen entries will appear in the limited edition 2016 Vita Calendar distributed to Vita’s global network and the winners. Some of the photos are below and a pdf file of the full calendar is available for free download to users of the Vita Gallery www.vita-europe.com/beehealth/gallery.
2015 Vita Bee Health Initiative Award Winners
The Pinnacle Winner of the first Vita Honeybee Health Initiative Award is a research project run by the UK Devon Apicultural Research Group potentially involving hundreds of beekeepers as well as professional scientists investigating honeybee queen fertility.
Seven Distinction Winners have also been announced with a wide range of projects including group bee disease identification, a children’s project and a bee wellness programme.
Vita (Europe) Ltd and Apilab in South America start working together for healthier bees
At Apimondia 2015 in Daejeon, South Korea, two companies based in different hemispheres and with the common aim of promoting honeybee health have announced that they are joining forces to offer beekeepers a wider range of bee health treatments, feeds and products.
Vita (Europe) Ltd, the world’s largest dedicated honeybee health company, is teaming up with Apilab, veterinary beekeeping product manufacturer active across South and Central America. Through joint marketing each company’s products can be made more widely available and there are possibilities for joint research and development activities.