Open Source Content Management

7.5 Integrated Pest Management

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a strategy for controlling agricultural pests that has been in use since the early 1970s. This strategy is now being used to help control important maladies that beekeepers encounter.

The concept of "thresholds" for pests is integral to IPM because it helps to determine if and when treatment is necessary.

IPM Core Principles

1. Base decisions on understanding the pest, the host, and their interactions.
2. Set thresholds for pests rather than trying to achieve complete elimination.
3. Use multiple tactics, flexibly applied.
4. Operate safely, profitably, and with environmental sensitivity.

IPM and Thresholds

Understanding the concept of "thresholds" for pests is integral to IPM because it helps to determine if and when treatment is necessary.

1. Avoid treatment below identified thresholds. The first response based on understanding these thresholds is to avoid treating colonies that are below an identified threshold. After all, overzealous reliance on preemptive chemical treatments was the reason this system was developed.
2. Treat with care. The second response is to identify treatment options and evaluate the effectiveness of each tactic so that the most effective combination of pest suppression techniques can be implemented.

Both of these steps require the ability to identify the malady and the level of the disease or pest population. For instance, in the case of American Foulbrood there is no threshold and the disease must be dealt with at the first identifiable sign. In the case of varroa mites, thresholds are critical and using techniques such as the sugar roll, detailed earlier in this module, are used to determine mite levels.