Have a swarm that turned up a while back. Normally I'd treat with OA as a matter of course but for various reasons I couldn't do that.
The varroa levels are starting to concern me, 5 frames of brood and I'm getting 20-30 mites dropping per week. 6-8 times what my full size hive is dropping. At the moment there's no drone brood to double check with but the first signs of DWV were also present today.
I'm considering that I probably need to take some action with this hive sooner rather than later.
OA is obviously out.
They're too small and, I don't believe, not badly infested enough to warrant a shook swarm/OA treatment.
I've swapped over the original foundationless frame they had because they've filled it full of stores and given them another hopefully that they'll draw drone comb on but I wonder if it's worth taking more immediate action. The varroa calculator recommends a months time so culling drones could be an option.
As they're still building up and have no supers I'm considering going with a thymol treatment, at least for two weeks to see what gets knocked down and I know that putting the queen off lay is a risk.
I did contemplate icing sugar but I don't think it has enough of an effect to consider that it will make enough of a difference.
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