2year study

[nemphlar]

Anyone else see the past 18 months as unique period since varroa arrived where the whole of the UK suffered an extended winter with low v counts followed by a fast build up and a reasonable queen breeding, probably followed this year with a varroa comeback for treaters and non treaters alike.
A PhD opportunity for some bright young thing.

[Jon]

Yep. In general the mite count has been low. I skipped the autumn thymol treatment on 10 colonies at one apiary and just used Oxalic in December and they came through fine.
I lost one colony to mites which was a swarm arrived in a bait box in the garden last June.
I wasn't checking it too closely and skipped autumn treatment only to discover it had a huge mite load in November.
That one dwindled to nothing by February.

Some people could get badly caught out if they think last year was a typical year.
You have to be vigilant with those pesky mites.

[Trog]

Probably like the midges which had a bad year last year and have come back early this year! On the positive side, the bumblebee numbers seem to have recovered, and there are lots of butterflies around. I've never seen the cherry blossom (all types) so good - hardly any flowers at all last year so the trees have rested. Bees all over it so we might just get cherries if the blackbirds don't get them first! Can't wait to see how the apple blossom does when it appears

[mbc]

, probably followed this year with a varroa comeback for treaters and non treaters alike.

Aye, unfortunately "probably" has turned out to be "definitely" for a lot of my bees, my hoped for varroa hardy bees have mostly been crawling this Spring and gone beyond my arbitrary "no need to treat" threshold. I'm currently feeling a bit despondent about this two steps back for my bee breeding and only have a handful of thriving colonies still below this threshold, and I fear it wont be long before these show signs of suffering too, so I will inevitably fold and have to knock the varroa back with something on these too. Still, first graft is done from the best of these thrivers and hopefully, year by year, my bees will become a little bit better.

[Jon]

Have you done any mite counts using shakers and a known quantity of bees from the brood nest?
The mite levels must be quite high if you are seeing crawlers.
last autumn my bees were showing from 0-13 mites per sample of 300 bees.
Must test a few colonies in May just to get a general idea.

[mbc]

Have you done any mite counts using shakers and a known quantity of bees from the brood nest?
The mite levels must be quite high if you are seeing crawlers.
last autumn my bees were showing from 0-13 mites per sample of 300 bees.
Must test a few colonies in May just to get a general idea.

I've got sharp eyes Jon, and "arbitrary" for me means "can I see any damage" eg. spotty brood pattern, not necessarily phoretic mites or deformed wings. Perhaps I should be a bit more scientific in my assessments, but until someone takes over paying the mortgage, time is of the essence.

Edit: In fact, if a colony had a high mite count but still had a good brood pattern and was otherwise thriving, I would still consider it as a breeder.

[fatshark]

Mite numbers here are generally low in the 20-30 colonies I've looked at or discussed with others. The exception are those that didn't treat last autumn or winter … and those are riddled. We has so few frosts this winter I suspect there was no time when colonies were broodless. I'm therefore surprised the levels are as low as they are in the good 'uns. We went through ~500 capped drone cells - all purple eyed stage - last week and found precisely 4 mites.