I would like to ask you

[Gandalf]

Hello
I may remind oneself - I'm beekeeper from Poland. I am an admin of polish forum about beekeeping. In last time I write many articles to different polish magazines about beekeeping. My new article is about bumblebees import's to UK. Recently, I read BBC Nature and I found one article:
w w w . bbc. co. uk /news/science-environment-22861651
I would like to ask you, why during the last winter many apiaries didn't wait till spring. Is the reason for this is the Varroa with viruses?

Recently, when I wrote on Your forum I have found out, that british beekeepers use Apiguard. Is the Apiguard still effective? We have this medicine in Poland from December 2012. What is the reason collapse of bees this winter? How your apiaries?

Please answer me,
Gandalf

 

[Queens59]

What is the reason collapse of bees this winter? How your apiaries?

Can't speak for others - but winter was long and hard - my bees relied on me for sugar syrup as they could not forage for enough food of their own. Sugar syrup is OK as a stop gap but not a full-time diet. This also meant that those hives that survived until Spring 13 -were not strong enough for Oxalic...and so died off Also, as the weather was so bad I lost 2 hives to mice eating around the mouseguard...

Apiguard, I use every 2 years or so and is always achieved a good drop level - whether that is the same everywhere - I do not know...

My hives have gone from 2 - 5 through splits and nuc making, all strong and happy with forage strong. Taken 100lb og honey on top of splitting etc too.

 

[enrico]

A lot of multi hive bee keepers seemed to have large losses whilst those with a few hives faired better. It is easier to monitor and deal with food levels with fewer hives. Apiguard is still used and seems to be as effective as any other treatment however we now have MAQS which is new this year and we are waiting to see if this is any better or worse
Best wishes
E

 

[Erichalfbee]

Most people....certainly the folks inhabiting this forum.... are quite relentless in their pursuit of diseases of which Varroa is but one.
Most losses here could be attributed to the atrocious weather over the last eighteen months.
I don't know if you can take that as a snapshot of beekeepers in general in the UK?

Apiguard is effective and so far mites are showing no resistance to any thymol prep. A lot of us make our own autumn treatment. There is a recipe here in the forum.

 

[Vramin]

A lot of multi hive bee keepers seemed to have large losses whilst those with a few hives faired better.

Wally Shaw (technical advisor to the WBKA) has suggested that this might be due to a restricted forage range because of the the bad weather last summer. This could lead to a limited amount of pollen being available for winter provision. There may be enough to support a few hives, but insufficient to support more hives.

 

[Skyhook]

My 5 hives overwintered well. I use a thymol mite treatment which works quite well (about 80%?), and it is said that mites will not become resistant to thymol because of the nature of it's action. I also use oxalic which I think is very effective if you have no brood.


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[Skyhook]

Wally Shaw (technical advisor to the WBKA) has suggested that this might be due to a restricted forage range because of the the bad weather last summer. This could lead to a limited amount of pollen being available for winter provision. There may be enough to support a few hives, but insufficient to support more hives.

That sounds as good an explanation as I've heard. It's easy to feed sugar, harder to deal with protein deficiencies.


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