Leaving it late.

[lindsay s]

The levels are higher than I'd like but we've a lot of colonies and two varroa factories elsewhere on the allotments.

Excuse me if I’ve got this wrong Nellie but aren’t you worried about infestation from the varroa factories elsewhere on the allotments?

[Neils]

Not worried so much as we've had to increase the amount of active intervention and treatment in our IPM as a result.

[nemphlar]

Treated 8 with thymol this year rather than FA , never seen so much robbing, does the strong smell disguise the scent of intruders and allow them free access. Does seem to knock reasonable numbers down, but never seen such a frenzy of robbing. Large hives d own to 10mm, with nucs locked down

[gavin]

I do get the impression that thymol encourages robbing, but it also causes a lot of fussing at the entrance. Could that be what you are seeing?

[Adam]

Thymol has a strong smell and must mask the queen's pheromone and also the hive smell. If all bees stink of thymol, then maybe they can enter other hives at will?

There has definitely been activity in front of many of my hives. However some I thought were being robbed have liquid stores right by the front door, so that would indicate that they are keeping invaders at bay. Mini-nucs have not bees so good at it, Esp. queenless ones as they have been robbed out. I was keeping them either to temporary house queens - soon to be withdrawn from service, or to shake out in front of another hive when the brood had fully emerged. The robbing has been by bees, despite there being quite a few wasps about.

[nemphlar]

Gavin treated the last of my hives with thymol yesterday, very agitated but different from robbing, they are crawling all over the front of the hive, but not much flying going on. This hive had a new queen laying well in the nuc but very patchy in the bigger hive and I replaced her last week. Knock done for one night 270 thymol is pretty impressive, was tempted to use OA due to lack of brood.