My grandad had lots of hives 20+ he never used vap in the winter . he controlled mites after extraction. Wouldn't it be better to get your colonies in order before autumn/ winter sets in and the bee's would be all the healthier/ stronger for it .
Yes, he was right.
He probably didn't vape because it's a pretty new idea but you need to get the mite levels as low as possible before the winter bees are made - midwinter is too late as all of them will be compromised by then, but LASI seem to think that's fine.
Most varroa treatments do not work on mites in sealed brood but we get over that with some treatments like apiguard by applying it over the whole brood cycle.
Originally OA trickling was offered as an alternative to the other treatments which had grown ineffective,not as a supplement, but trickling more than once over a short period is not recommended as it can harm bees and especially the queen therefore it has to be done in deep midwinter when the colony is broodless, or, as LASI love doing, rip the hive open and scrape out all the brood. But, as I said it's all pretty pointless as, if you haven't done an autumn treatment all the winter bees will have already been compromised, and if you did the job properly in the autumn, what's the point.
You can use vaping in the autumn, it doesn't harm or disturb the bees so you can do it multiple times - three or four times, once every five days will cover the whole brood cycle as varroa have to remain phoretic for a few days before nipping back into a brood cell. And if you want to do one treatment at Christmas time 'just for luck' why not, as you don't have to open up so no disturbance to the bees (unless, again, you follow LASI's 'advice')
