Apiguard with queen cell/AS split

[MandF]

Hi all,

I wondered if I could get some advice about varroa treatment as I am not sure what the best course of action is.

The situation is that one of my overwintered hives is booming, to the extent they have almost filled 2 supers and last week I had 8 or 9 queen cells in various stages, one was a couple of days from being sealed. I assumed swarm cells, added the second super and decided to AS them a week later (monday just gone).

I also wanted to treat for varroa, I noticed several mites on drone brood I was cleaning up from the edges of frames. The plan was to use MAQS on the hive - before I saw they wanted to swarm.

On monday I performed the AS, even though they had only built the one QC this time in the week - I figured it was more likely supercedure now - she is a red queen (this hive was the insurance hive for overwintering!). I decided to split them anyway to avoid any risk of swarming. This QC was also obviously 2-3 days from sealing.

I have left the original queen in situ, with the supers, and the remaining brood with single qc for a couple of days. I plan today to add another super to the AS, and check the QC has been sealed in the split, and if so was intending to apiguard the split (brood and half).

My concern is that I didnt want the apiguard affecting the feeding of the QC - hence waiting until it was sealed to treat. I am unsure what effect the apiguard will have on the hive when she emerges a week later - will it mask her pheromone and affect how she is treated in the hive? Once she is ready to mate that tray of apiguard will be gone, and at the same time most of the brood will have hatched. I could, therefore, have the option of not putting the second tray on as most of the mites should have been knocked back, if apiguard with a new queen is problematic?

I am basically looking for advice as to how and when to treat for varroa when you have a queen cell and virgin/newly mated queen. I could, of course, MAQS that hive today, and the 7 day treatment is finished when she is due to emerge - that sounded like the best option to me but I know MAQS is more potent and finding information on MAQS with qc/new queens is more difficult than info about apiguard!

Any advice/experience gratefully received.

Thanks

M

 

[Davelin]

No experience of MAQS, but would be wary of using in this situation.
You can't use apiguard if you have supers on.
How bad is your varroa situation?

If it were me I would do a calculation of infestation, either drone uncapping or tray in, and unless it was desperate delay treating until hives were stable.

 

[MandF]

The supers are with the queen in the A/S - there are no supers on the brood with queen cell, so apiguard would be fine in that respect.

The varroa situation is quite bad - I suspected as much from the prevalence of mites on the drone brood I removed, but the email from FERA explained/confirmed it.

I will use MAQS on the A/S at some point, as they have the supers on so little choice here. Worst case is that the old queen will succumb, by now she would have laid some more eggs in the A/S so not the end of the world. I plan to replace her with her daughter when she is laying - so in an ideal world she will survive the MAQS until I am ready to replace her.

The question is what to do with the vast amount of brood with the QC.

If I apiguard I could just do one pack, and within the 2 weeks or so it is effective most of the brood will have hatched, and the new queen will have been sealed for the first week of that.

I could MAQS that hive too, 7 day treatment whilst the new queen is sealed - whilst it might not be 100% effective on the sealed brood, it should have knocked it back enough to make the reunited hives reasonably healthy.

Or I could do a full apiguard treatment, but this will span the new queen emergence and then the second tray would go in at around the time she is going on mating flights and wanting to start to lay.

At the moment I am leaning towards MAQS on both. Sods law this will kill the queen on the AS and damage the sealed queen on the brood hive!

 

[Davelin]

I would still do an more accurate assessment of your varroa situation than 'I noticed quite a lot'

The FERA circular doesn't automatically mean everyone has masses of varroa; I have a minimal amount at the moment.

If all your brood emerges before your new queen starts laying you could use oxalic acid.

Alternatively if you look in last months BBKA news there was an article explaining how you can manipulate brood frames in an A/S to control varroa without any chemicals at all.

 

[3bees]

There is a telephone number on the MAQS information leaflet. I needed some advice after applying a treatment to my colonies, they were really helpful, and answered all my questions. I wasn't fobbed off with a call centre.

 

[MandF]

Using drone sacrifice/sampling is a way to determine varroa levels, and as I said, from when I was cleaning some drone brood off the edge of frames I saw enough varroa mites to know they needed treating.

Oxalic is a good idea, but back of fag packet maths says that the queen should emerge around the 22nd, mate from 23rd, and in theory could start laying any time after that day. The split would have been made 11 days by then, so potentially half the brood still capped.

If I wait until 31st the hive should mostly be broodless, but the queen is likely to be laying then, albeit no capped brood at that point. So, I would have a hive with no capped brood for max oxalic efficacy, but it could affect a newly laying queen?

The question remains, would applying oxalic to a hive with a newly laying queen be more disruptive, and do more damage, than applying formic acid to the hive for the 7 days she is in her cell still?

 

[MandF]

There is a telephone number on the MAQS information leaflet. I needed some advice after applying a treatment to my colonies, they were really helpful, and answered all my questions. I wasn't fobbed off with a call centre.

Thanks, I will give them a call tomorrow and see what they say.