December Varroa

[jenkinsbrynmair]

he hasn't had a problem - apart from people winding him up and telling him there's a problem where there isn't one; read his post properly, his average drop over the last fortnight was 7.2 daily.
What he needs to do now is relax, leave the bees alone and stop listening to some of the rubbish touted at him.
Obsessively counting mites and making up some mythical forecast based on an at the best unreliable online 'varroa calculator' and pollen availability is not worth a jot.

 

[madasafish]

On October 15th my full hive weighed 97lb's , roof/crown board/brood box/super and stand, what weight would get you worrying.
Thank's.

With that weight I would sleep till April.

 

[Millet]

With that weight I would sleep till April.

Thank you for that..

 

[Erichalfbee]

With that weight I would sleep till April.

I was going to say exactly that

 

[beeno]

In my experience lots of stores often = little brood, which is equally bad in the present climatic conditions. Not enough bees for spring build up due to varroa perhaps? It is no good telling newbies not to worry for the sake of it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Neither is talking utter tripe for the sake of it

 

[Tom Bick]

he hasn't had a problem.

We all have different ideas of what is a problem but what was mentioned in post 13 I would say at that time there was a problem and thankfully some measures taken to deal with it.

 

[Plenty of honey]

What sort of varroa drop should I expect/tolerate at this time of year?

Put the removable screen in the other day and am seeing far more varroa than I did earlier in the season. Or is this normal?

Is there anything I should potentially be doing right now to combat this.

I have to confess I did no autumn treatment as hive went queen less and so was late to get itself sorted with a mated queen and I felt by then they needed as much opportunity to get their numbers up for winter, and didn't want to risk queen going off lay due to treatments. Maybe wrong choice... but it's the choice I made.

Thanks

Another thing to mention, and hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that Varroa know a" failing colonie". With a warm , mild autumn and with robbing continuing in September, October and even in to November , its not suprising that mite numbers are still rising again.
Varroa are known to "jump ship" if they sense a hive is failing. I honestly can't remember where i saw this study done, and i am sure someone else will know?
So a failing hive, being robbed out in your neighbours apiary and a mild autumn with queens continuing to lay, is a recipe for more varroa. I didn't treat in our dearth, when there was a perfect window in August, i regret that now as i am still waiting to treat. this weekend looks good but were still 16 to 17 degrees, total madness!! However i have minimal brood, so ...

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

but what was mentioned in post 13 I would say at that time there was a problem and thankfully some measures taken to deal with it.

Some measures? good measures I would say - there was mention of a 'substantial' mite drop but no mention of how much - he then conducted a three phase vaping with the commensurate expected heavy mite drop due to the treatment (not excessive I would think but a moderate load expected from a healthy colony) he ended up a few days after the last vape with seventeen mites in two days (and the colony still benefitting from the vaping at that point I would surmise) it's now midwinter, he has a moderate drop which I wouldn't worry about and not much brood - which is what we expect at this time of the year - then we get some fool banging on about the colony being doomed and it's all down to varroa!!! let's get real here

Another thing to mention, and hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that Varroa know a" failing colonie"

Yup - but just to get things straight, as usual with these threads the discussion has skipped from the OP to a different forum member

In my experience lots of stores often = little brood,

Let's look at this statement first shall we? in 'my experience' lots of stores means (at this time of the year) a well fed colony with little autumn nosema problems as they took down feeding readily for winter stores if I had fed my colonies well in the autumn I would not expect them to feel a little light until the new year - well done Millet!
Little brood - hmmm what do we expect at this time - it's mid December, the queen should be at her lowest laying cycle so we should be seeing? Little brood and let's not follow that ridiculous belief that just because the bees are collecting pollen that they should be brooding. Around here we had plenty of pollen from both HB and Ivy through September to November - all of my colonies had little if no brood.
COLONIES ARE NOT MEANT TO HAVE MUCH BROOD AT THIS TIME OF YEAR!!

in the present climatic conditions.

Well, regardless of the fact that it seems to be June in her little corner of LaLa land, most of us are experiencing winter weather - yes, in general it has been a little mild, but we've had cold periods, frost (especially up North) a dad of snow, maybe a little more rain than we'd like but nothing unusual for this time of year apart from a lot of rain same old same (but then again I can remember at least three winters in the last ten twelve years where it's rined almost constantly from October to December)

Theres more to beekeeping than endlessly counting varroa and opening up to count brood throughout the winter.

 

[Millet]

In my experience lots of stores often = little brood, which is equally bad in the present climatic conditions. Not enough bees for spring build up due to varroa perhaps? It is no good telling newbies not to worry for the sake of it.

Thank you for your input Beeno this was the front of the hive on November 15th, it went on for several hours and to me it was orientation flights as well as older workers gathering stores they was hundreds of bees in the sky, since then i have had brood hatching up until my last inspection of the varroa tray several days ago, judging by the roar that came out of there from my last treatment i would say there is more than enough bees in there, which has me thinking they may use more of the stores than i would like, i'm sure i will find out for certain by spring time though.

 

[drex]

All my bees out flying in good numbers today, except for the poly hive, which only had a few fliers. It hefted very light, so I popped the lid. Loads of bees at top of frames, active, but looking down the seams, few stores and little brood. Gave them some fondant. They had apiguard in early sept, and will have oxalic vape in new year. Rest of the hives untouched as all hefted ok.

 

[pargyle]

All my bees out flying in good numbers today, except for the poly hive, which only had a few fliers. It hefted very light, so I popped the lid. Loads of bees at top of frames, active, but looking down the seams, few stores and little brood. Gave them some fondant. They had apiguard in early sept, and will have oxalic vape in new year. Rest of the hives untouched as all hefted ok.

The question I would be asking myself for next year is 'why is the hive so light on stores this early in winter' ? Either you miscalculated how much honey they had stored for their use over winter or you failed to feed them sufficient syrup when the natural forage dried up.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with feeding fondant over winter - many people just use fondant and it should keep your bees going if they are genuinely short of stores ... But ... I would always prefer to see my bees going into winter with capped stores on the frames where they are living (be it stored syrup or honey) than surviving on fondant above the frames.

It seems odd that a poly hive should be light on stores as bees in poly hives tend to consume less over winter than their counterparts in timber hives. The other question that possibly you should be asking is whether this colony was strong enough going in to winter, loads of bees at the top of the frames does not always correspond to lots of bees in the hive - it can be very deceptive. Small colonies will survive over winter with a smaller amount of stores - but- a smaller colony should either be hived in a smaller hive or the hive dummied down to size that suits the volume of bees it contains.

So .. sadly more questions than answers as far as I can see ?

Interestingly:

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=506675#post506675 Post #2 ... Perhaps you stopped feeding too early (many had only just started in October) or simply miscalculated the level of stores they had at that stage ?

 

[drex]

The Miller type feeder was leaking as I found out later and circumstances did not allow me to get back to feed more, hence I made a note to keep a special eye on it. Double brood box, with a wide dummy . It was good and strong going into winter.
I was actually trying to say that through direct observation, having opened the hive for a good reason, that there was not much brood, consistent with time of year.

 

[pargyle]

The Miller type feeder was leaking as I found out later and circumstances did not allow me to get back to feed more, hence I made a note to keep a special eye on it. Double brood box, with a wide dummy . It was good and strong going into winter.
I was actually trying to say that through direct observation, having opened the hive for a good reason, that there was not much brood, consistent with time of year.

Well ... at least you have an explanation for the discrepancy and like all our mistakes in beekeeping - lesson learned for the future. Sometimes it just defeats you when you think you've done everything right !