Api Life Var vs Apiguard vs (insert favourite non Pyrethoid Varroa Treatment)

[EmsE]

P.s I'm hoping to change to Apivar next year as 3 out of the 4 colonies that need feeding are refusing to touch the syrup, plus it's not temperature dependent so I'd have more faith that it's working properly. I don't have enough water bottles for each hive to compensate for the weather

[Jon]

If bees wont take syrup when they need it don't rule out nosema as refusal of syrup is a symptom of nosema imho.

[EmsE]

Hmm, hadn't thought of that & it could well be as the bees have been moved around quite a bit this year (unfortunately and out with my control). I'll have to get a sample and test them, but as they have a thymol treatment on will that help with the nosema (if it is present)? Apiguard is known to put bees off their feed which is why that sprung to mind first.

[Jon]

I have used apiguard for 4 years now and I find they take syrup feed ok during treatment. Some queens will stop laying.
Thymol dissolved in syrup feed over winter helps control nosema according to this paper by Youcel which I have posted before.
I doubt if Apiguard helps with nosema control as it needs to be present in the winter stores.

[HJBee]

EmsE's bees sit beside my new hive which has Apivar. Her bees do seem to be off their food and it is too stark a difference between mine and Ems to say its not the Apiguard, as her bees were very strong prior to the feed, including a new housed swarm (most comparable to the size / age of mine). It may not be the treatment alone, but it can't be ruled out. Will be checking my mite drop in 8 days or so mid treatment.

[Jimbo]

Checked four colonies today for varroa drop after the first 7 days of treatment with Apivar. The drop is so high in all four colonies that I am having difficulty counting how many dropped. This is so different from last year when there was only a small drop after treating with Thymol. Any suggestions why some years are very high and some years like last year were so low. I am not alone in finding large drops. As posted earlier our club colonies are also high this year.

[Jon]

Mine are low again this year although I am only monitoring a few.
Some colonies are only dropping 4 or 5 per day.
Could they have robbed out collapsed colonies or ferals and taken the mites home?

[Jimbo]

Hi Jon,

I doubt that as high varroa counts are starting to be reported all over our area. I think the weather may have something to do with it. As last year we were getting low counts and this year it was high if we were to look at temp or rainfall etc we may see a pattern that gave the low counts.

[gavin]

These last two summers have been similar dreary damp affairs at least in my neck of the woods. I reckon that the main difference was that the winter was particularly mild and the mites may have kept breeding and - important for the oxalic treatment - may have had sealed brood in December.

Of course the neonics in the local OSR might have helped keep numbers low in my apiary (or maybe it was all that swarming .... )

[Jon]

last winter was really mild and the one before was exceptionally cold and I had a low mite drop the following autumn in each case. Hard to see a pattern. It varies so much at the colony level. last year with Oxalic I had one colony drop over 100 in December but others dropped only a few. All got Apiguard in August.