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Thread: Next Varroa Treatment

  1. #11
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    The short answer to the other two is no they don't. They technically both belong to other guy I work with. 1 is colony with a lot of chalkbrood throughout last season, the other is our "entertaining" swarm colony from last year that was still superseding queens into september. That being said, it made it through winter so maybe we should give them some credit. I've not inspected either so I'm only going on word of mouth but I understand both colonies were down to around two to three seams of bees a couple of weeks back.

    Considering the relative strength of mine going into winter I'm kind of surprised that it's come through as strong as it has. Despite the chalkbrood the other colony was on brood and half, and needing it, so it's a shame to see it come through so badly.

    I guess I should append to the "What I learned in my first year" post "Keep good records", I didn't last year which is perhaps why I was a little hasty to slap Apiguard on. I know I treated last year and I know I was surprised by the mite drop during the treatment compared to what I thought I should see as a result of the weekly drop but that's as much information as I could tell you so I was hoping to start this year with a clean slate knowing that the Varroa Levels should be low (and I'm keeping better records this time around).

  2. #12
    Senior Member EmsE's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nellie View Post
    I guess I should append to the "What I learned in my first year" post "Keep good records", I didn't last year which is perhaps why I was a little hasty to slap Apiguard on. .
    I found good record keeping is harder than I thought it would be. I find that I keep getting lost with what I have or haven't noted. Then one of the children (though they won't admit it) wiped my file off the computer. Thankfully my mentor has been keeping notes on my hive too. This year I've promised to try harder with this and to do regular floor scrapings. Off to a good start so far

  3. #13
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    Keeping records is easy-peasy,all you have to do is keep 2 record cards per colony. One card you keep under the roof in a sealed freezer bag and the other you keep in your equipment box.ALWAYS fill in the one in the hive first EVERY time you visit the hive ,then if you can't remember what you did/saw or lose the card in the equipment box,a quick check under the roof will reveal all.Keep the records simple and don't forget to date each entry.

  4. #14

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    Hi there,

    Has anyone tried dusting with icing sugar? Not having mesh floors I'm a bit stuck on knowing what the reduction in the drop rate was when I tried it last summer. But I'm told it fair causes the little mites to drop off, also saw in Thorne's catalogue (p50) a a few ways for applying icing sugar ( I just used a fine sieve). It seems a particularly good method to use over the summer as there are not any nasty chemicals to get in the honey. Any advice on the efficacy would be much appreciated - I do use Apistan in the autumn as well.

    IanT

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    Hi Ian

    I have tinkered with it but not as a main method of controlling Varroa.

    Icing sugar does knock mites off bees but I wouldn't rely on it being effective enough to hold the mite population in check. Many mites will be inside sealed cells, so you have to keep doing it repeatedly to catch those that have just emerged before they infect new cells. Also if you don't have a mesh floor they might be able to crawl back up onto passing bees.

    If you miss half of them then the population may be back at its previous level after a week or so, especially if there is drone brood as they multiply faster in that (14 days sealing to opening, mites can produce four daughters in that time).

    Before I had mesh floors I usually kept an eye on mite numbers by looking at drone brood. You can guess what proportion you sampled and multiply up the number to estimate the total in the colony.

    Apistan also isn't guaranteed to work well now. The large-scale beekeepers in my area seem to have resistant mites, and I stopped using it years ago. Apistan will probably knock down mites in every hive, but what matters is the numbers you have left. If it only got half of them it isn't much help.

    Many beekeepers are using one of the other methods that can kill most of the mites (98-99%) during the gaps between honey production. Oxalic acid in the winter, thymol in the spring or summer, for example.

    best wishes

    Gavin

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by IanT View Post
    Hi there,

    Has anyone tried dusting with icing sugar? Not having mesh floors I'm a bit stuck on knowing what the reduction in the drop rate was when I tried it last summer. But I'm told it fair causes the little mites to drop off, also saw in Thorne's catalogue (p50) a a few ways for applying icing sugar ( I just used a fine sieve). It seems a particularly good method to use over the summer as there are not any nasty chemicals to get in the honey. Any advice on the efficacy would be much appreciated - I do use Apistan in the autumn as well.

    IanT
    I do use Icing sugar, but very much as a part of the whole, so to speak. Getting a definitive answer on how well, if at all, Icing sugar works as part of Varroa IPM seems very difficult, I've seen articles claiming that it's briliiant and articles claiming it makes no difference whatsoever and everything in between. My own view is that it probably helps but I certainly don't think that as treatment goes it's on a par with Apiguard et al in terms of efficacy.

    I take a very technical approach to my application of Icing sugar. I take a British Standard handful and apply forward momentum in the direction of the top of the frames, any that remains on the frame tops I brush onto the bees.

  7. #17

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    I use an old spice jar (the little Sharwood glass ones with a plastic seive-y thing on top) to dust mine. Adding a couple of grains of (uncooked!) rice helps stop it from getting lumpy.
    Like Nellie, I've found some articles swear its brilliant, others say it's pointless, others say it's actively a Bad Thing, hassling the bees for no good reason. Personally, I do it at the end of an inspection, so the bees have already had to suffer my hassling them and I don't think it really adds more stress to them.

  8. #18
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    Well that was an interesting trip up to the allotment. I ended up being later than I'd anticipated so the wait for a full inspection goes on, while the sun was still shining, it was a little windy and blowing a little chilly for me to want to take everything apart for a leisurely look around.

    My apiguard treatment has been, how shall we say? Interesting. I know the temps have been a little low, but after two and a bit weeks I'd have expected a few more than the 3-4 mites I found on the floor this evening. While the overnight temps have been as low as 2-3 degrees over the past couple of weeks it's been pretty dry during the day, the bees have been active and temps have been up around 12-16 degrees for the most part yet the mite drop was negligable.

    With the bees now covering 9 frames and the allotment plots around threatening to burst into flower any day I've decided to Super rather than continue the Apiguard.

    I'm not going to read too much into it for now and I've left the floor in for another couple of days to see what, if anything changes as I'm hoping to go up again tomorrow and carry out a first full inspection.

  9. #19
    Senior Member EmsE's Avatar
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    I think I read somewhere that using the icing sugar technique supposedly encourages the bees to clean themselves more therefore making it harder for the varroa to stay on the bee If I had one of those things on me I wouldn't need icing sugar to encourage me to get rid of it so I can't say I'm convinced with that theory.

    I got my Varroa results back today from a 2 week sample I sent to the SASA which says that no varroa mites were present.

    I've got the super frame in the brood box, and the bees are doing a great job already in drawing it out.

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by EmsE View Post
    I think I read somewhere that using the icing sugar technique supposedly encourages the bees to clean themselves more therefore making it harder for the varroa to stay on the bee If I had one of those things on me I wouldn't need icing sugar to encourage me to get rid of it so I can't say I'm convinced with that theory.
    I think I'm right in saying that it's supposed to have another effect too. in addition to encouraging the bees to groom the Varroa mite is supposed to have sticky feet and the icing sugar supposedly makes it harder for them to get a grip and hang on by covering their feet in dust so the two in combination help by making it easier for the grooming to knock the mites off the bees.

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