bees in lochcarron scotland..

[ladamegabrielle]

Hi I am new to beekeeping but I have fed the local bees for years...I have now have on hive and i panick at the site of a dead bee on the threshold of the hive.I have heard of icing sugar dusting to check for varroa.any .Any suggestions as to what is the best way to do this?
thank you.Gaby

 

[ladamegabrielle]

sorry about the typing mistakes,can t find my specs..
Gaby

 

[enrico]

Icing sugar is just sprinkled or puffed on the bees, as they groom each other it encourages them to groom out the varroa, need a sticky board to do a count, but icing sugar not necessary, just the sticky board. You will get loads of dead bees at this time of the year, drones and drone brood will be heaved out, room has to be made for stores, don't panic. Check the varroa count and check defra advice. If treatment is necessary then just treat.
Good luck, taking a step back and letting them do what is natural s the best advice I can give you!
E

 

[Poly Hive]

Save the sugar for feeding this is now considered to be not that useful.

The first thing to do is to find out what your daily mite drop is by having a sticky board under the open mesh floor which of course you have?

From that drop rate treatment type and need can be assessed.

And nice to see another fellow Scot on the forum.

PH

 

[Arfermo]

Icing sugar is just sprinkled or puffed on the bees, as they groom each other it encourages them to groom out the varroa, need a sticky board to do a count, but icing sugar not necessary, just the sticky board. You will get loads of dead bees at this time of the year, drones and drone brood will be heaved out, room has to be made for stores, don't panic. Check the varroa count and check defra advice. If treatment is necessary then just treat.
E

Icing sugar is practically useless. Apiguard best if treatment is justified by counting. However, counting the drop is not foolproof by any means. Enrico above says "check DEFRA advice". This almost certainly means downloading their multipage leaflet on "Managing Varroa" - it's got everything you need to know in it and can be found by Googling. You might even be able to beg or borrow a hard copy from your local BKA if you are a member.

 

[Jimbo]

Hi Ladamegabrielle.
Loch Carron may still be in a varroa free area of Scotland. You can check the map published on the SBA web site. Even if you are in the varroa free area you should still be monitoring for mites. Contact your local association for assistance on monitoring

 

[gavin]

Gaby is interested in powdered sugar as a monitoring method not a treatment one. Shaking them up in a container is a bit harsh and not for the colder months as it is a bit invasive collecting the sample.

You can send early spring floor scrapings to SASA in Edinburgh, or look through them yourself, or look at a floor insert of you have a mesh floor.

Our SBA maps suggest that Lochcarron may be free of Varroa - please do let us know if you discover otherwise.

 

[enrico]

Never heard of shaking them with sugar! Sorry, probably got the wrong end of the stick again! Why do you do that? So you can see the voroa? I am a bit confused!

 

[gavin]

Here's one variant. Another is just to tip the coated bees onto a card, let the bees fly and crawl off, and pick through the sugar-mite mixture to see what you've got.

[vid] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URuhrElJOIM[/ame] [/vid]

As far as treatment goes, it does knock mites off but it is what is left behind that matters. Nowhere near efficient enough to be recommended as a mite control method in my view.

 

[enrico]

Thanks

 

[Nic Rhodes]

hi and welcome, can you explain how you have fed the bees for years? Are you a keen gardener?