Best time to treat varroa

[Bakerbee]

Hello all, just wanted some thoughts as to what is the best time to treat one of my hives, it's a swarm hive. At the time I discovered they had moved into a couple of stacked bb's I had no other hives on the site, so no need to go up there. So no idea when they moved in but they have turned out to be very gentle bees, quite light in colour, which are still laying prolific amounts of brood. I run commercials and they are on 9 and a half frames of brood. Very full frames nearly wall to wall, with tiny arcs of capped honey around. I popped a super on last week when on 8 frames of brood. In the bb the outer remaining frames being filled with stores. I usually do my varroa treatments in August, but I've never had a hive expanding brood nest at this time before, they usually are slowing and or decreasing. Should I wait a bit, keep watching the brood size and treat after it starts to decrease in size a bit or just crack on and treat in mid August as I usually do. Thanks for any advice.

 

[Boston Bees]

Mid August fine, no reason to change your usual approach

 

[user 819]

Treat with your normal regime and time scale so that the winter bees when produced have fewer mites to contend with.

 

[Bakerbee]

Thanks for the advice all

 

[oliver90owner]

Simple. At any time that they need it.

 

[Patrick1]

Never treat Prophylactically for Varroa, that's how we get resistance to treatments.

 

[Boston Bees]

Never treat Prophylactically for Varroa, that's how we get resistance to treatments.

Hundreds of beginners lose their hives each winter following just this advice.

"I didn't see any varroa on the tray so I didn't treat"

Beginners (and this is their section) - ALWAYS treat for varroa whether you see them or not.

Anyway, your statement doesn't make any sense. The term "prophylactic" refers to treatment given to prevent infection rather than treat infection. There are no hives that are not infected with varroa (apart from a few isolated valleys or islands). So there is no such thing as prophylactic treatment for varroa.

 

[user 20297]

Hundreds of beginners lose their hives each winter following just this advice.

"I didn't see any varroa on the tray so I didn't treat"

Beginners (and this is their section) - ALWAYS treat for varroa whether you see them or not.

Anyway, your statement doesn't make any sense. The term "prophylactic" refers to treatment given to prevent infection rather than treat infection. There are no hives that are not infected with varroa (apart from a few isolated valleys or islands). So there is no such thing as prophylactic treatment for varroa.

Within the UK, I'm not even sure how the beekeepers who claim that they live in such an area can be sure that it is free of varroa; they certainly can't proceed with the assumption that it always will be. But they are at one end of the spectrum in infestation levels and the rest of us are somewhere else in the range. So what @Patrick1 says seems correct and also follows what scientists say.

Should the beekeepers of remote islands treat just in case? Should the beekeepers who are in deep varroa country treat more frequently?

In fact, by recommending that you should treat for varroa whatever you see in or under your hive, you are suggesting prophylactic treatment.

 

[Boston Bees]

Within the UK, I'm not even sure how the beekeepers who claim that they live in such an area can be sure that it is free of varroa; they certainly can't proceed with the assumption that it always will be. But they are at one end of the spectrum in infestation levels and the rest of us are somewhere else in the range. So what @Patrick1 says seems correct and also follows what scientists say.

Should the beekeepers of remote islands treat just in case? Should the beekeepers who are in deep varroa country treat more frequently?

In fact, by recommending that you should treat for varroa whatever you see in or under your hive, you are suggesting prophylactic treatment.

Beekeepers who live in varroa free areas are not being referred to in this conversation. There are so few of them that they can be safely ignored for the purposes of giving advice in this beginners section

I am not treating prophylactically for varroa, as I know I already have them, so that would be an oxymoron. You could argue that I am treating prophylactically for varroosis, but waiting till you see varroosis before treating for varroa is not a smart approach

 

[Patrick1]

Hundreds of beginners lose their hives each winter following just this advice.

"I didn't see any varroa on the tray so I didn't treat"

Beginners (and this is their section) - ALWAYS treat for varroa whether you see them or not.

Anyway, your statement doesn't make any sense. The term "prophylactic" refers to treatment given to prevent infection rather than treat infection. There are no hives that are not infected with varroa (apart from a few isolated valleys or islands). So there is no such thing as prophylactic treatment for varroa.

Prophylactically for Varroa, pedantic. We obviously mean to prevent increases in varroa, the problem with your idea of treating because you assume you have varroa is wrong, You would need to treat every 3 weeks as many treatments do not treat under the capping.

For me the tray is a pointless piece of kit, it monitors dead varroa ! we need to know the phoretic count, just because treating in August helps the beekeepers diary doesn’t mean its right for that particular hive.

 

[user 20297]

Beekeepers who live in varroa free areas are not being referred to in this conversation. There are so few of them that they can be safely ignored for the purposes of giving advice in this beginners section

I am not treating prophylactically for varroa, as I know I already have them, so that would be an oxymoron. You could argue that I am treating prophylactically for varroosis, but waiting till you see varroosis before treating for varroa is not a smart approach

You have a habit of saying things are excluded from a discussion; that's a moderators prerogative.

I have brought "varroa-free" areas into this in order to illustrate better that saying people should treat without attempting to quantify the level of infestation can lead to overuse of a chemical. That may be ok with oxalic....everyone says so, but maybe less wise with chemicals such as amitraz.

 

[Boston Bees]

the problem with your idea of treating because you assume you have varroa is wrong, You would need to treat every 3 weeks as many treatments do not treat under the capping.

No, that's a straw man argument. My point is that the best advice for beginners is to assume that they have a high varroa load in late summer, which is when varroa loads generally peak in a hive, and start to treat then. This is also the time when you need to treat in order to ensure that those crucial winter bees are healthy. Which is why I advised to treat in mid-August, in post 2 above. Not every 3 weeks.

The problem with telling beginners to "never treat prophylactically", or "treat when the bees need it", is that this leads to beginners either not treating, because they haven't "seen any varroa", or treating too late because they suddenly notice in November that their bees look a bit sickly. Telling beginners to do sugar or alcohol rolls is generally just a distraction - it isn't what they are comfortable doing (especially alcohol washes), so in reality they don't do it.

 

[Boston Bees]

You have a habit of saying things are excluded from a discussion; that's a moderators prerogative.

Not at all, you can talk about what you want, I just think it confuses things.

How any beginners on here are in a varroa-free zone? If they are, I am sure they know it already.

And how would you determine whether you are in this "deep varroa country" you refer to or not? Is there a map of varroa in the UK showing where levels are higher than others, like the Covid map? No, there is no monitoring and reporting structure that would allow this to exist. So, let's keep things in the realm of the useful and just assume that, unless you have specifically been told otherwise, you are in area where varroa exists, and will therefore have them in your hive, and act accordingly.

Otherwise you just risk perpetuating the hope that all beginners have that "heh, maybe my bees don't have varroa!", which sadly leads to a large number of hive deaths annually.

 

[user 20297]

How any beginners on here are in a varroa-free zone? If they are, I am sure they know it already.

How does anyone know for certain that they keep bees in a varroa free zone and wouldn't you tell them to treat their bees anyway as they can't be certain of that "fact" in any case?

You are advocating that we should dose every colony of bees regardless of its level of varroa infestation. Rather than go on about it any further by giving superfluous reasoning why this may have negative effects on our longer term ability to manage bees successfully in the presence of varroa, I'll butt out here as we are way off-topic and I'm on a losing wicket anyway....

 

[drex]

When I started beekeeping my excellent mentor told me to routinely treat in August and again in Dec/Jan. I did this and never had a problem with healthy, strong hives, so I just continued. The only modification I have made is for the winter treatment to be moved a month or so forward, as recent research shows that is when bees are most likely to have minimal brood. I will not use hard chemicals in my hives.
Over the last couple of weeks I was concerned by a hive that had much more drone brood and just a little worker. The bees were not happy, so I did a disease inspection, shaking bees off all frames. Did not see anything of concern.
Today I saw 2-3 bees with deformed wings, so I zapped with OA. I just had enough juice in the battery, which has been brought home for charging, so I can repeat in 5 days time. There were no eggs and only a few grubs.
I do not have great hopes for this colony. Before spotting the sick bees I was just going to shake the out, thinking I had drone layers. They might still get shaken out after full treatment if they do not pick up.
Made me think that perhaps I should start doing alcohol washes, but this the first time varroa has been an obvious problem in 12 years

 

[Boston Bees]

How does anyone know for certain that they keep bees in a varroa free zone

The only varroa-free locations are the Isle of Man (which isn't even in the UK, to be fair) and the odd very isolated bit of Scotland (Colonsay?).

I am sure anyone on the Isle of Man who keeps bees will know about their special status (assuming they still have it) because bee imports into the island are famously banned.

And by definition, there aren't many beekeepers in those isolated bits of Scotland (though The Apiarist blogger just moved to one!).

I don't think there is a single part of England, Wales or NI that claims to be free of varroa.

So I don't think we need to worry too much about people inadvertently treating in varroa-free areas, given there are so few.

 

[Erichalfbee]

How does anyone know for certain that they keep bees in a varroa free zone and wouldn't you tell them to treat their bees anyway as they can't be certain of that "fact" in any case?

There are very few of those and they are well documented

 

[Patrick1]

It’s a mindset problem as much as anything else, the problem with treating because its “August” is we will eventually build resistance to products and lose another defence in our verry limited armoury.

 

[Patrick1]

No, that's a straw man argument. My point is that the best advice for beginners is to assume that they have a high varroa load in late summer, which is when varroa loads generally peak in a hive, and start to treat then. This is also the time when you need to treat in order to ensure that those crucial winter bees are healthy. Which is why I advised to treat in mid-August, in post 2 above. Not every 3 weeks.

The problem with telling beginners to "never treat prophylactically", or "treat when the bees need it", is that this leads to beginners either not treating, because they haven't "seen any varroa", or treating too late because they suddenly notice in November that their bees look a bit sickly. Telling beginners to do sugar or alcohol rolls is generally just a distraction - it isn't what they are comfortable doing (especially alcohol washes), so in reality they don't do it.

If your argument is to treat to protect winter bees you are way to early, I treat September as my earliest but probably October, dependant on weather and temps. October treatment gives us a 6 month old bee for March, we are more fortunate than most in south as the temperatures in the south allow brood rearing all year round.

 

[Wilco]

If your argument is to treat to protect winter bees you are way to early, I treat September as my earliest but probably October, dependant on weather and temps. October treatment gives us a 6 month old bee for March, we are more fortunate than most in south as the temperatures in the south allow brood rearing all year round.

I wonder if the exact timing is a bit moot here. The aim is to significantly knock down mite numbers prior to winter bees being produced but not so far in advance that their numbers can start to recover. Winter bees may be produced Sept/Oct, especially in milder areas like the SE, but further North this will be sooner. If the mites are knocked down in mid Aug, this will probably work for most people and may be more useful given the KISS principle. I'd also argue if the Autumn is poor it's better to have treated early than late.