A message from a beginner to beginners in beekeeping.

[user 20297]

A few days ago I read this oddly titled posting from a respected US. blogger: Beekeepers and the Dunning-Kruger Effect: Unskilled and Unaware
Thinking about the message it conveyed pushed me that final furlong into treating my bees against varroa mite. I hadn't previously seen much natural mite drop and assumed that the multple splits I have carried out this year had interrupted the development of a mite infestation.

I used Apivar, which I was discussing on here yesterday. The instructions prepare you not to expect immediate results in the form of an obvious mite drop. It gave me a slight shock this morning when I saw at least twenty mites on the tray after only twelve hours with the strips.

Not everyone enters the hobby as an instant, beekeeping, smartarse; obviously, most people seem to develop into one eventually. But if you're like me and have come into beekeeping with a slightly sceptical attitude to some of the basic "preachings" of experienced beekeepers there's at least one thing they're right about....your bees are living with varroa mites.

EDIT.
PS. Thank-you to many people here, and in particular to @Boston Bees , who more or less "told me so" in a recent posting.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Told you so
The one thing that I preach ad nauseam to beginners is that just because you don’t see mites either on the bees or on the inspection tray doesn’t mean they are not there.
Natural drop is a rubbish way of monitoring.
I have had colonies drop zilch on the board in a week and hundreds in 24 hours after one vape

 

[user 20297]

Told you so

Not everyone enters the hobby as an instant, beekeeping, smartarse; obviously, most people seem to develop into one eventually.

 

[Erichalfbee]

You’ll be a smartarse before you know it. Wait till you get your teeth into the beginners next year

 

[enrico]

You’ll be a smartarse before you know it. Wait till you get your teeth into the beginners next year

It's when you believe you have none and then get a drop of a thousand odd that you suddenly realise you should have listened!

 

[Patrick1]

Told you so
The one thing that I preach ad nauseam to beginners is that just because you don’t see mites either on the bees or on the inspection tray doesn’t mean they are not there.
Natural drop is a rubbish way of monitoring.
I have had colonies drop zilch on the board in a week and hundreds in 24 hours after one vape

Absolutely right, the OMF only monitors dead mites, a pretty useless exercise. Look under the caps of a few drowns every now and then and check the thorax, I know that’s not the place they tell you to look but generally I spot them in that location the easiest.

 

[oliver90owner]

A good exercise for new disbelieving beginners might be to put in a frame, during the summer season when drones are being reared. A frame of drone foundation would be good.

Wait for the drone cells to be capped and fork out some of the brood, noting how many cells are infested with varroa. While not necessarily being a measure of infestation directly, this does go to demonstrate they are there in abundance - and would be doubling in numbers, every brood cycle.

The loss of a frame of brood is not as bad as it seems if there is a very high % of varroa on that frame - at least the mites were not in worker brood!

 

[user 20297]

Update...I'm two weeks in with the Apivar now and we've had good to excellent weather throughout; meaning the bees are still getting plenty of pollen and nectar.
All six of my current tally of colonies have been treated; they vary from one big one down to to one which is four frames in a nuc box. Only one of them has shown any appreciable drop....I'm assessing this visually rather than counting. But It would be possible to count them quite quickly if I wanted to...there aren't many. The worst one is the proceeds of a primary swarm which I caused back in June. This tallies with the idea that a significant number of the mites exited from the hive with the swarm.
Overall I expected to see more varroa...I suppose there's time yet, and although I'm at peace with myself knowing I've done the "right" thing, I'm kicking myself wondering, would they have beeen OK without treating.

 

[Jules59]

A few days ago I read this oddly titled posting from a respected US. blogger: Beekeepers and the Dunning-Kruger Effect: Unskilled and Unaware
Thinking about the message it conveyed pushed me that final furlong into treating my bees against varroa mite. I hadn't previously seen much natural mite drop and assumed that the multple splits I have carried out this year had interrupted the development of a mite infestation.

The Dunning-Kruger effect abounds; from Anaesthetics to SCUBA diving (my past fields of teaching). The only difference is that anaesthetists injure and kill others when they screw up through incompetence, SCUBA divers injure and kill themselves.

 

[Boston Bees]

Readers of this thread in future should note that Beebe has changed his/her mind, and now wishes treatment hadn't been applied. Updates will no doubt follow from the author.

 

[user 20297]

Readers of this thread in future should note that Beebe has changed his/her mind, and now wishes treatment hadn't been applied. Updates will no doubt follow from the author.

Update from Beebe to say that they haven't changed their mind. However, given that it now seems clear that only one of my hives had any appreciable infestation with varroa, in hindsight, maybe pre-assessing with an alcohol wash and trusting the results would have been a good move?

 

[Boston Bees]

Update from Beebe to say that they haven't changed their mind. However, given that it now seems clear that only one of my hives had any appreciable infestation with varroa, in hindsight, maybe pre-assessing with an alcohol wash and trusting the results would have been a good move?

Hold on, on another thread you described the non-treatment approach taken by Pargyle as "our" approach

I fully support our approach and wish I hadn't given in to the doom-mongers this year and treated my bees

You mustn't just blow with the wind depending on who you are speaking to ...... it's no way to get ahead in life!

 

[user 20297]

...corrected, missed out a "y"...y + our = "your"; thank-you for the proof-reading. Although it means the same really. I am an admirer of the @pargyle approach and I think he's earned the right to be slightly smug.

I'm sure your life-coaching is correct; I would never have got to where I am now if I had been someone who listens, thinks, re-evaluates and takes risks.

 

[pargyle]

...corrected, missed out a "y"...y + our = "your"; thank-you for the proof-reading. Although it means the same really. I am an admirer of the @pargyle approach and I think he's earned the right to be slightly smug.

I'm sure your life-coaching is correct; I would never have got to where I am now if I had been someone who listens, thinks, re-evaluates and takes risks.

You did the right thing in treating them ... I don't feel smug - I feel lucky.

I use sugar rolls to assess the level of mites (less destructive than alcohol washes and just as accurate). The levels vary throughout the season and you really need to have the confidence of seeing a number of results for each colony before you even consider not treating them ... it's a PITA to be honest although, as you get to know your bees to some extent you can tell when they are healthy - clear crownboards and regular periods watching the bees on the top of the frames also allows me to see what is going on.

If you do decide to go TF next season - invest in a gasvap or a pan sublimator. OA by sublimation is by far the least invasive and most organic treatment for varroa mites and a single vape will give you an almost instant assessment of the mite load. If the vape gives a low drop on a colony then, perhaps, see if that one manages the mite load and do regular sugar rolls to see how they progress. It's a halfway house to being TF ... even I consider OA as non-chemical treatment which has little effect on the bees but which is a very effective mite killer. If I did need to treat this would be my treatment of choice.

The last thing I would recommend is just leaping in to TF on all your hives without some knowledge of the real situation of varroa in the colonies and the inspection board (without a forced drop) is about useless.

 

[user 819]

This year I have been sugar rolling my colonies and have been seeing low mite counts, I think after dissolving the sugar I have seen one mite.
Extra time and kit is needed to do so and not something I carry out on a weekly basis but a monthly check.
This years vaping so far has indicated again low mite drop on most colonies bar one where mites approx. dropped have been 550 thus far, the rest in low 20's to 60's, it would need a big leap of faith for me to go down the route of treating them like TF colonies and risk their health.
Like Philip I don't see the application via vape as a chemical intervention as it is a substance from the organic list, it is the route I prefer as once the series of vapes are done with there is no product removal to break the propolis seal.

 

[user 819]

It is said 1- 3 % is the threshold for TF or low mite infestation and monitoring with no treatment is needed, one would need to know colony numbers to estimate %. Though a sugar roll of 300 bees and a mite count of 1 - 9 sits better then larger numbers of mites.
Even if one put a number of 30k as a colony size, then letting /allowing 300 mites to happily go about doing their business may not sit happy in the mind.
For me piece of mind is better knowing the winter bees have a better cleaner bill of health.

 

[madasafish]

I too have seen low mite counts -almost certainly as the variable (carp) weather has lead to often prolonged brood breaks and interruption of varroa breeding.

But in good prolonged sunny weather the opposite will be true.

Until I read from Treatment free beekeepers what their honey yields are a>- but they almost all appear most reluctant to declare them. So I assume they are rubbish.

edit
a> over a period of years.

 

[user 20297]

You did the right thing in treating them ... I don't feel smug - I feel lucky.

....but in my opinion you have earned the right to be.

 

[LeaBees]

You did the right thing in treating them ... I don't feel smug - I feel lucky.

..... If I did need to treat this would be my treatment of choice.

The last thing I would recommend is just leaping in to TF on all your hives without some knowledge of the real situation of varroa in the colonies and the inspection board (without a forced drop) is about useless.

As 1st year newbie in this, I'm weighing my options as well following application of treatment this season and seeing the effect on the bees.
Have absorbed a lot of knowledge from @pargyle but, not to be pedantic, are you saying you aren't treatment free, just only treat when you have to ? And that threshold is something you define for yourself that your bees can cope with? I'm still trying to understand what totally treatment free beekeepers do with colonies with mite infestation. Let them fail/die ? Or is there constant manipulations that don't allow mite levels to get to be a problem ?

EDIT: Just seen your post here. Clarifies my query some

 

[drex]

I will stick my neck out and say that I would urge all new bee keepers to treat routinely for a year or two until they get used to reading their bees, then experiment and find your own path as you will. Each to their own but walk before you run. Learning the natural history of bees is a good start