Honey Bees

Pests, Diseases, and IPM

Several pests and diseases affect honey bees. Integrated pest management (IPM) is your strategy to prevent, monitor, and act when necessary.

  1. Prevent
    • Choose a good hive site.
    • Use clean equipment.
    • Start with a hygienic queen.
    • Cull old comb.
  2. Monitor and Identify – What are the most common honey bee pests and diseases? How will you know them when you see them?
  3. Set Action Thresholds – Complete elimination of pests is impractical. You want to control pest levels rather than completely eradicate pests.
  4. Control – What’s next when pest levels exceed threshold? IPM begins with the least invasive, least harmful options and progresses if needed.
    1. Physical/Mechanical Controls
    2. Biological Controls – Currently, there are not any particularly effective biological IPM controls.
      • Can try beneficial nematodes added to the soil under and around the hive to disrupt the small hive beetle life cycle.
    3. Chemical Controls – This includes miticides and antibiotics, which should be used judiciously to avoid increasing pest resistance.

Here is a helpful website of the most common honey bee pests.

Here is a website with lots of helpful videos that focus on varroa treatment.

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