Originally Posted by
gavin
Hi Nellie
If your mite drop this week is low I'd blame the weather and try again once it really does warm up in April. The trouble with treatments at this time of year is that they do need time, and you wouldn't want them on while the bees were bringing in honey. I would imagine that the rape might be flowering in your neck of the woods in about three weeks? Not really enough time to do a full Apiguard treatment. Given that your colony has 4 frames of brood at the moment it could be filling the brood box by the time the rape comes into flower, and needing its first super.
If I was you I'd try the shallow frame trick. It will knock back the population if you do it well and probably allow them to get through to a late summer treatment. It also gives you a chance to fork out the drone brood (easiest when the brood is getting more mature) and get a clear idea of the load of mites they are carrying. You might have an option to treat in the June gap instead if your locals say there will be one, or hold off until the late summer after the main flow but before the autumn brood raising and maybe a balsam or ivy flow.
There was a Dutch website that suggested that the recovered drone pupae make a nice stir-fry!
I know that people say oxalic is hard on the bees, but then thymol fumes do clearly upset or annoy them. I don't think that there is a way to kill Varroa without affecting the bees somehow, short of letting them do it themselves (which, of course, very few can do).
best wishes
Gavin
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