How are vapers getting on this spring?

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I just want to know if it is me, this weird warm winter and long cold spring, vaping generally or -- forbid! -- resistance (I think not) but I took three big colonies and two nucs into winter all with new Qs apart from one 2014 Q in one of the big colonies. That big colony and one other were vaped in September/October on a 3x5-day rota. The third was Apiguard-ed. The nucs were untreated in autumn. Then all were vaped in January 2x7 days, when it was clear there was going to be no "winter brood break". 2x7 because the original drops were limited.

The 2014 Q vaped-vaped colony collapsed (I rescued the Q but the colony was effectively a loss) and the other vaped-vaped is building slowly, with signs of varroosis. Everyone else is going great guns (untreated-vaped and Apiguard-vaped).

Others I have been in touch with have told me they had great results from vaping this year. Is that representative? How are other forum members who vaped this winter getting on. Is this just a really good illustration of the need to rotate treatments?

 

[Erichalfbee]

I vaped five hives but left it too late. I had horrendous drops from all...I mean really horrendous (thousands!!!!)
Two survived and are thriving.
I have no doubt that sublimating properly is effective and will continue to use it.
All the colonies got vaped again in January when the drops were negligible.

The same colonies....or what they were then, were vaped the year before and came through winter no problem at all (in fact I had eight which were then combined into five in the Spring

 

[madasafish]

Vaped January.after Thymol treatment August. (minimal drops both times)
Bees thriving.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I vaped five hives left it too late.

Define? Maybe that was my problem, but I never got those huge drops. And you lost 3/5? So sorry.

 

[Brigsy]

The supplier of my nuc that I hope to receive soon has posted yesterday that he and many other commercial sellers have experienced high levels of varroa despite sublimating. He is treating again prior to delivery.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Me too, I didnt treat until January, not huge counts in fairness but the damage was already done, Bees being made in October, November and December are the ones that take you through to around now. So if these are sick, well. We're all still learning!!!
I won't be waiting until January ever again. I am treating in the next week, in August after the honey harvest, then October, then November!!
Nothing to loose, everything to gain.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

The supplier of my nuc that I hope to receive soon has posted yesterday that he and many other commercial sellers have experienced high levels of varroa despite sublimating. He is treating again prior to delivery.

Wow! Top post. Thank you.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Define? Maybe that was my problem, but I never got those huge drops. And you lost 3/5? So sorry.

I treated them mid September onwards. It was obviously too late for three of them as they failed to make any winter bees. The thing is that all of them had the same ridiculous drop yet two of them are as strong as you might expect them to be this spring. There may have been an element of queen failure. One queen was from a swarm I caught and she was new that year. The other two were 2014 Buckies. One of the hives showed classic signs of PMS the other two just dwindled away.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Me too, I didnt treat until January, not huge counts in fairness but the damage was already done, Bees being made in October, November and December are the ones that take you through to around now. So if these are sick, well. We're all still learning!!!
I won't be waiting until January ever again. I am treating in the next week, in August after the honey harvest, then October, then November!!
Nothing to loose, everything to gain.

Yes we learn these lessons the hard way don't we ? After my 7th winter I thought I had cracked it. I will do the same as you.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

All colonies vaped early October last year all bar one going great guns (the bar one is a lateish mated queen, but they're also in the highest altitude apiary so it's early days to make a proper judgement) The ones in the lower apiary are all supered already.

The 2014 Q vaped-vaped colony collapsed

How do you know it was varroa induced - could have been a number of things, nosema C, queen problems

the other vaped-vaped is building slowly, with signs of varroosis.

Explain the symptoms of 'varroosis' please

 

[Plenty of honey]

Yes we learn these lessons the hard way don't we ? After my 7th winter I thought I had cracked it. I will do the same as you.

Ha, thats made me chuckle, your the same as me, i wonder how on earth my bees have survived up until now!!

 

[Plenty of honey]

All colonies vaped early October last year all bar one going great guns (the bar one is a lateish mated queen, but they're also in the highest altitude apiary so it's early days to make a proper judgement) The ones in the lower apiary are all supered already.

Well done you Jenkinsbrynmair, you got it cracked. Thats proof enough in my books, early vaping is a necessity, regardless of supposed "brood breaks"

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

How do you know it was varroa induced - could have been a number of things, nosema C, queen problems

Yes, and it's interesting to see @Erichalfbee also had 2 2014 Buckies fail. But this Q was laying in a nice pattern.

But...

Explain the symptoms of 'varroosis' please

My main answer to both posings of the same question is dead pupae partly uncapped, with visible mites, white deposits on the top of brood cells and abundant DWV.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Well done you Jenkinsbrynmair, you got it cracked. Thats proof enough in my books, early vaping is a necessity, regardless of supposed "brood breaks"

Well hold on; there is autumn treatment and winter treatment in most people's books. @Erichalfbee is saying mid-September was "too late" for her [autumn treatment] in her opinion.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Well hold on; there is autumn treatment and winter treatment in most people's books. @Erichalfbee is saying mid-September was "too late" for her [autumn treatment] in her opinion.

Well i am saying i am treating after the honey harvest then in the start of the winter, because i just cant afford to let my numbers build up too much. I really think its worth treating 3 or 4 times during the season, unless you do the 3 times over 15 days treatment.
I dont think it really matters when you treat precisely anymore (regardless of supposed brood break". Recent research (I posted it on here but theres been more since) shows vaping seems to have hardly any effect of bees or queen, so helping against varroa all year around, is what my bees will get, until such times i do a mite count and i see numbers falling before i treat. (or a drop in high counts) .

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Well i am saying i am treating after the honey harvest then in the start of the winter, because i just cant afford to let my numbers build up too much. I really think its worth treating 3 or 4 times during the season, unless you do the 3 times over 15 days treatment.
I dont think it really matters when you treat precisely anymore (regardless of supposed brood break". Recent research (I posted it on here but theres been more since) shows vaping seems to have hardly any effect of bees or queen, so helping against varroa all year around, is what my bees will get, until such times i do a mite count and i see numbers falling before i treat. (or a drop in high counts) .

<Said lightly> A sort of machine-gun hail of "magic bullets". I hope it works, and I had been thinking of going the same route but for now I am going to diversify away from Api-Bioxal vaping solely and am thinking of what to do if my "suspect" colony indeed cannot outrun the mite; Apiguard first candidate, with shook swarm and Api-Bioxal drizzle a second.

 

[fatshark]

I treated 3 x 5 day intervals in early September. Once again in the first week of January. Mite levels are extremely low (3 dropped from each of two very carefully monitored colonies over the last 64 days). All colony losses have been due to DLQ's (and my worst year ever for these). Winter bees are predominately made earlier than many people think ... certainly those in November and December will go through the winter, but there are only small numbers of these relatively. Most are raised earlier. Winter bees have been shown - experimentally - to live for up to 9 months.

If you look at the work by Dainat and colleagues (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22179240) you can work out when winter bees start being raised (in their climate in Bern, not hugely different from ours). They could see differences in winter bee longevity by mid-November in Varroa infested colonies ... these bees would have been raised from eggs laid in the first week of September.

Optimal treatment to hammer the Varroa and reduce the DWV levels would need to be early enough that these bees - as larvae/pupae - aren't exposed to mites.

PS have also uncapped hundreds of pupae and not found a single mite.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Well hold on; there is autumn treatment and winter treatment in most people's books. @Erichalfbee is saying mid-September was "too late" for her [autumn treatment] in her opinion.

Yes, too late for me.
I should have monitored for mites Mid August when any honey harvest would be off. Forage failed due to the weather and I hung on for a possible Balsam crop which didn't materialise either.
I had checked the mite load by sugar rolling in July and I thought that I might get away with it but in retrospect I was skating on thin ice.

 

[Obee1]

I did my vaping in September - and did 3 times at 5 day intervals. One hive had a huge drop so I did a fourth. The drone brood in that hive was badly infected and ended up with some larvae having upto 6 mites. Then I repeated the triple vaping in January. That is now my mega colony that I demaree'd last week. I've been monitoring the drop and checked the first batch of drone larvae - glad to say there are barely any varroa.

 

[kazmcc]

Does vaping so often not affect the queen? I remember asking about oxalic trickling back when I first started bee keeping, and some reckoned that a queen that lived through more than one application could be affected.