jon was those figures reflecting hives that have just been treated with an OA dribble or not
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yep. Treated with OA on Monday.
Shortest day soon so abiboloxal will have to go ahead despite weather
Saw this short video on Hive alive, I may have being set up but it is interesting to see how a mite can transfer from a flower to a foraging bee.
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2016...wers-honeybees
One I am monitoring is still dropping 60+ per day on day 5
Not trying to be smug as varroa can catch us all out. But found 2 mites dropped in over 10 colonies. The varroa boards were in for over a week. I had one really bad colony in autumn but it shows up as clean at the moment. Either worrying (for me) that the drop counts are misleading (they often are) and I'm not detecting them or I got the autumn vaping regime spot on.
Now the decision as to whether give them another winter vaping......
I suppose I'd better just in case. At least it will provide peace of mind.
You could Vape or trickle a couple as a trial and check what falls.
My mite counts were very low in August but seem to have crept up now.
Having said that, the colony I am monitoring will probably end up with a total of 500 or so which is well short of a catastrophe.
I don't think I have had a colony drop over 1000 mites in the past 10 years
Some of the posts on facebook are showing mite drops of thousands.
May as well vape the lot at the same time if I'm getting the gear out. It's relatively quick.
I had one hive that dropped a few thousand mites this year on vaping. It was dropping quite a lot before hand. Interestingly it was a hive that was moved to the borage, where there were around another 30 or so hives from other keepers dotted around the field. Circumstantial I know.....
Certainly gave me confidence that vaping was doing the trick, as the drops from my other hives was paltry.
This paper shows how quickly mites get picked up from other colonies in the area.
Invasion of Varroa destructor mites into mite-free honey bee colonies under the controlled conditions of a military training area
Journal of Apicultural Research
Vol. 50 (2) pp. 138-144
Thnaks for that Jon. Perhaps not fanciful thinking on my part.
As I'm hoping to take more colonies there next year I can do a before and after and see what emerges.