DWV in One Colony - How to Proceed ?

[Uncle Betty]

As per the title...

Checking through colonies today in preparation for taking off supers/treating, saw a few DWV bees in one particular colony. Not catastrophic numbers, but once I'd seen half a dozen, I'd seen enough for my liking. Luckily it was the first one I looked at, and I was then extra-vigilant about the others.

This colony has at the moment 6 frames of BIAS.

Was treated with Apiguard last September. Not treated since.

The old queen (marked and clipped) disappeared in mid-May. On 18th I reduced down to one open QC, and the new queen started laying eggs between 17th and 20th of June.

With that brood break, I haven't monitored mite drop in the meantime. Tray is in now.

My questions are as follows -

1. Should I treat immediately ?

2. If so, can I treat this colony alone for the moment, or is it a bad idea not to treat all colonies simultaneously ? I ask because I still have a fair amount of uncapped super frames across all four colonies, and thought to leave for another week before removal.

3. I planned to extract and feed back to the bees anything unripe, and I think there will be a good amount of that. Not sure about this now. What to do with those stores ?

4. Chances for this colony of surviving are... ?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Swarm]

Vape them and I don't think a week between them and the rest is a big deal as they will still be receiving treatment when the others begin theirs.

 

[Wingy]

Could you take the supers off this colony and place on other colonies to complete the ripening / seal off. Start treatment of the infected colony then in a week or two start treatment of the other colonies as the supers come off. I would guess treatment would overlap

 

[Finman]

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6 brood frames. You may make a nuc from them. Then you can polish the broodless hive from mites.

Give the Queen to the broodless hive. You get quite clean hive for autumn.

Then look, what happens to the brood nuc. Treat it and save the bees, which will be after 3 weeks and after final treatment.

Surviving is 100%. IT has time to grow before Winter feeding. You may give the honey frames after treating bees with oxalic trickling.

 

[Softley]

Count your varroa first.

If you haven't treated or monitored this year I would use MAQS now with honey supers in place on all colonies provided they are large enough (bees just about fill a brood box). Quick and easy and kills mites in brood as well as on the bees. I have used MAQS over the last few years without issues.

You may find that come next week your supers are still uncapped and you need to leave them on. You shouldn't use other treatments with supers in place. Also, your colonies may still need the space the supers give them. You could be waiting weeks for those supers to be capped and ready for removal.

Get colonies fit for winter now and they have every chance of surviving.

A side note, I would use oxalic acid in January. The bees should be broodless (if it's cold enough) and the oxalic will kill a good number of phoretic mites. Gives the bees a good start to the season. I'll may also oxalic at other times when the bees are broodless.

 

[Uncle Betty]

OK, thanks to all for replies.

I can't get to a supplier until Thurs., and all I have at this minute is Apiguard.

MAQS... makes me nervous.

The vaporiser is a great long-term investment anyway.


So... Apiguard today, or can/ should I risk the wait until Thurs. and buy a vaporiser ?

 

[Eyeman]

If you haven't treated or monitored this year I would use MAQS now with honey supers in place on all colonies provided they are large enough (bees just about fill a brood box). Quick and easy and kills mites in brood as well as on the bees. I have used MAQS over the last few years without issues.

Never had a problem with MAQS until last year 4 double nationals lost their queens after a standard 2 strip 7 days treatment. All 4 through up queen cells. Later that year I lost another queen in a double national this time only using one strip at a time.
I now reserve MAQS for emergency use with supers on when I've missed the boat with my mite moniting.

 

[Softley]

OK, thanks to all for replies.

I can't get to a supplier until Thurs., and all I have at this minute is Apiguard.

MAQS... makes me nervous.

The vaporiser is a great long-term investment anyway.


So... Apiguard today, or can/ should I risk the wait until Thurs. and buy a vaporiser ?

You shouldn't use Apiguard with supers on, it'll contaminate the honey with thymol.

Assuming the colony is too large to be condensed down into the brood box, you could replace the supers with empty boxes and then treat with Apiguard. Trouble here is if you have a flow on (balsam is doing well here this year) then you may end up with an awful lot of wild comb or a brood nest clogged with contaminated honey that the bees will move up once you put the supers back on.

If it was something I was dealing with here with the balsam coming in fast, I'd use MAQS. Ventilation and space is key.

Have you counted the mite drop yet? May be you can hold off if varroa levels aren't as high as you think.

 

[Softley]

Never had a problem with MAQS until last year 4 double nationals lost their queens after a standard 2 strip 7 days treatment. All 4 through up queen cells. Later that year I lost another queen in a double national this time only using one strip at a time.
I now reserve MAQS for emergency use with supers on when I've missed the boat with my mite moniting.

Did you do something different? Seems strange to loose five queens in one season when you'd been ok up to then.

Whenever I've used MAQS the bees have always had plenty of room with at least two supers. I always place matchsticks under the corners of the crownboard to give better ventilation. Entrances fully open and OMFs.

 

[Uncle Betty]

You shouldn't use Apiguard with supers on, it'll contaminate the honey with thymol.

Assuming the colony is too large to be condensed down into the brood box, you could replace the supers with empty boxes and then treat with Apiguard. Trouble here is if you have a flow on (balsam is doing well here this year) then you may end up with an awful lot of wild comb or a brood nest clogged with contaminated honey that the bees will move up once you put the supers back on.

If it was something I was dealing with here with the balsam coming in fast, I'd use MAQS. Ventilation and space is key.

Have you counted the mite drop yet? May be you can hold off if varroa levels aren't as high as you think.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I've decided on the basis of ''Bees first'' to remove all supers, and go the Apiguard route.

The flow is well and truly over, there's no HB, and the weather is not conducive anyway.

Whatever is capped is capped, whatever isn't I will give back to them. I don't think the supers are packed anyway, and I'm reasonably satisfied with what I got this year.

Vaping is in reserve.

 

[Eyeman]

Did you do something different? Seems strange to loose five queens in one season when you'd been ok up to then.

Whenever I've used MAQS the bees have always had plenty of room with at least two supers. I always place matchsticks under the corners of the crownboard to give better ventilation. Entrances fully open and OMFs.

Nothing different that I could detect. All the 4 losses were in one Apiary, with other 2 apiaries OK so nothing to do weather conditions or technique. The 5th loss was from the 4th Apiary when I treated later with only one strip.
The apiary with the 4 losses had much high varroa levels which I put down to 'mite bombs' from collapsed colonies coming from a 'beekeeper' near by.

 

[Finman]

Did you do something different? Seems strange to loose five queens in one season when you'd been ok up to then.

Whenever I've used MAQS the bees have always had plenty of room with at least two supers. I always place matchsticks under the corners of the crownboard to give better ventilation. Entrances fully open and OMFs.

You gasify mites and ventilate at same time. Where you have learned that!

The purpose is to make strong enough fume inside.

To loose 5 queens means too strong fumes. Dosage too big or too quick evaporation.

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[Softley]

Nothing different that I could detect. All the 4 losses were in one Apiary, with other 2 apiaries OK so nothing to do weather conditions or technique. The 5th loss was from the 4th Apiary when I treated later with only one strip.
The apiary with the 4 losses had much high varroa levels which I put down to 'mite bombs' from collapsed colonies coming from a 'beekeeper' near by.

I've never had losses like that from using MAQS so aren't best placed to comment, but clearly you have and so have others. I know that losses from MAQS has been discussed many times before but I wonder if there's anything in the genetics of the bees in that apiary playing a role with how they deal with MAQS strips. Could it be that those bees share genetics? I wonder if that strain show more aggression towards the queen when MAQS are inserted.

 

[Softley]

You gasify mites and ventilate at same time. Where you have learned that!

The purpose is to make strong enough fume inside.

To loose 5 queens means too strong fumes. Dosage too big or too quick evaporation.

.
.

You've just contradicted yourself there by saying "To loose 5 queens means too strong fumes".

If you read the instruction that are distributed with the medication it states:

Colonies require adequate access to fresh air during
treatment. An entrance must be provided that is the
full width of the hive, typically the bottom board entrance.
The bottom hive entrance needs to be fully
open (full width of the hive and a minimum height of
1.3cm) for the entire duration of treatment (7days). Entrance
reducers must be removed to prevent excessive
damage to colonies.

And also:

Overdose:
The use of higher dose than recommended could lead
to excessive brood loss, adult bee mortality, queen loss,
and/or absconding. In case of overdose, increase hive
ventilation by creating additional entrances from top to
bottom. Do not remove product from hive as this may
cause additional stress to the colony. Check for presence
of queen 2 weeks after application.

My crown boards do not have porter escape holes and so there is not usually any ventilation at the top of the boxes. For this reason, and also because there are lots of reports of losses, I provide a small amount of ventilation at the top of the hive by lifting the crown board a few millimetres. This works well for me and as I've said previously, I haven't seen the losses that some have when using MAQS.

 

[Eyeman]

I've never had losses like that from using MAQS so aren't best placed to comment, but clearly you have and so have others. I know that losses from MAQS has been discussed many times before but I wonder if there's anything in the genetics of the bees in that apiary playing a role with how they deal with MAQS strips. Could it be that those bees share genetics? I wonder if that strain show more aggression towards the queen when MAQS are inserted.

20 hives treated with MAQS last year- genetics mixed as I've bred from my own queens which have populated all sites.
There was a rumour that the company had reduced this years doage in the UK?

 

[masterBK]

Myself (with 30 colonies) together with another member of my association (35 colonies) have treated our double brood colonies using two strips each with MAQS in mid-august in 2013,14 and 15 and when checked in september we found all the marked queens still present and laying so I have no worries about using them again this year (last year used Apistan effectivelyfor 1st time in 8 yrs as bees not showing any significant resistance (Beltsvilletest). Just because the two events (MAQS strips and loss of queens) correlate doesn't prove cause. Bees ball queens at this time of year if colony disturbed too much (saw this happen last week and had to rescue her) and I believe it is recommended that you don't do this when inserting the strips.