Lack Of Varroa

[Ian123]

Not wrong at all - negates the need to open up and douse them in cold syrup midwinter, but you need to really knock back the varroa at the end of the summer to ensure healthy winter bees, you can do this using OA by doing three or four successive vapes at five day intervals to cover the varroa brood cycle

Yes above is 100% correct autumn treat for a healthy colony and healthy winter bees 1x winter to kill anything you can for reduced numbers the year/season ahead

 

[citrus]

Doesn't matter too much. The small deposition crystals get well distributed and get any returning fliers as they wander around the hive.

Just watch if you are vaping underneath a mesh floor as lot of OA will deposit on this.

thanks for the advice ... yeah I have made a wooden bodged eke and will do top down ... only thing is they are on double brood so just hope the vape is heavier the air so sinks ...

 

[Erichalfbee]

Can somebody who is vaping from the top explain their set up to me. I can’t imagine doing it without taking the top off to position the eke and equally I can’t imagine it in place all the time without getting filled with comb. Thanks

 

[Walrus]

Can somebody who is vaping from the top explain their set up to me. I can’t imagine doing it without taking the top off to position the eke and equally I can’t imagine it in place all the time without getting filled with comb. Thanks

I take off the roof and cover board, put on the eke, then put on the roof upside down. The eke has a hole in it so I vape though that (sublimox).

 

[Beefriendly]

As Walrus, but my eke has a clear perspex cover so I can see how well the vaping is going. You need a sublimox (or similar) for this approach.
It's a bit of extra faff but you are then sure you are getting a good spread of vapour over all the frames and seeing it sink downwards.
Might not be any more effective than from underneath, but there have been times on double brood when I've not seen vapour at the top of the 2nd brood box when vaping through the entrance....which is enough to make me think if it's sinking it has to reach every bit of the hive.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I take off the roof and cover board, put on the eke, then put on the roof upside down. The eke has a hole in it so I vape though that (sublimox).

Thanks
So you have to disturb the bees
I vape through a hole at the back of the floor above the omf.
Seems to be ok but as beefriendly says a double brood or even a 14x12 with a nadired super may pose issues

 

[Millet]

Can somebody who is vaping from the top explain their set up to me. I can’t imagine doing it without taking the top off to position the eke and equally I can’t imagine it in place all the time without getting filled with comb. Thanks

Here you go Dani..this is in the forum section (what did you do in the workshop today) it's a multipurpose crown board that i made several of..once vaped it can be turned back over with a 50mm piece of kingspan placed in the void.

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=16326&d=1545760704

 

[Beefriendly]

Thanks
So you have to disturb the bees

Jetting oxalic acid vapour into a hive does quite a good job of that.
So I figure a little extra disturbance taking the crown board off is really neither here nor there.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Jetting oxalic acid vapour into a hive does quite a good job of that.
So I figure a little extra disturbance taking the crown board off is really neither here nor there.

Yeah OK maybe I should have said I couldn’t face taking off every crownboard
Do you close the entrance?
I’m just exploring possibilities
I think I’ll stay with what I’m doing already.

 

[john t]

Yeah OK maybe I should have said I couldn’t face taking off every crownboard
Do you close the entrance?
I’m just exploring possibilities
I think I’ll stay with what I’m doing already.

if you are looking for an easy method for vaporisation
this is what i do,
at the rear of all my hives i have a numbered hive ID disc with an 8mm hole drilled behind, i vaporise through this,
simply swivel the disc to access the hole and vaporise straight in,

last night under torch light i treated 20 hives, less than 10 minutes from start to finish,very little disturbance and only a gentle hummm from the bees

john t

 

[Erichalfbee]

if you are looking for an easy method for vaporisation
this is what i do,
at the rear of all my hives i have a numbered hive ID disc with an 8mm hole drilled behind, i vaporise through this,
simply swivel the disc to access the hole and vaporise straight in,

last night under torch light i treated 20 hives, less than 10 minutes from start to finish,very little disturbance and only a gentle hummm from the bees

john t

Cheers
I have something similar except the hole is in the floor above the omf and is plugged with a bit of dowel.

 

[iann41]

John t

Do you run you hives warm or cold way. Does this affect how the vapor penetrates the brood nest?

 

[SDM]

John t

Do you run you hives warm or cold way. Does this affect how the vapor penetrates the brood nest?

It has a fair bit if energy as it evaporates and fills a large volume with the resulting crystals. Warm or cold way may affect the route the crystals take, but not whether they cost all the surfaces.

 

[Beefriendly]

John t

Do you run you hives warm or cold way. Does this affect how the vapor penetrates the brood nest?

If you are directing a stream onto a solid surface then depositions of OA crystals will preferentially form here and the hive won't get the full dosage. It's why I like to vape into a void on top so it gets everywhere, even then the deposition of OA builds ups at nozzle exit point and a stream cross the underside of the perspex and the far side.
Takes another 30 seconds after vaping for the cloud of vapour to sink into the brood box.

 

[For want of a better word]

If you are directing a stream onto a solid surface then depositions of OA crystals will preferentially form here and the hive won't get the full dosage. It's why I like to vape into a void on top so it gets everywhere, even then the deposition of OA builds ups at nozzle exit point and a stream cross the underside of the perspex and the far side.
Takes another 30 seconds after vaping for the cloud of vapour to sink into the brood box.

A vaping hood is the way to go.

Last autumn we did just one treatment per colony... have not seen much in the way of varroa...... but I bet the little mites are still hiding in there!!

Chons da

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Going back to the OP, I've one colony that before treatment was dropping 100 varroa per day (over a 4 day period). The biggest colony I have.

It has not swarmed or been split. It has the worst chalk brood. I united it at the beginning of May with a colony that had drones all winter. Maybe half the population was drone at time of unite.

The last treatment was an OA dribble just before Christmas.

Not noticed a huge amount of DWV surprisingly.

. . . . Ben

 

[john t]

John t

Do you run you hives warm or cold way. Does this affect how the vapor penetrates the brood nest?

That is a good point , my frames are cold way and i do get good coverage with the method im using, as beefriendly says, vape into a void will distribute the vapours better,

vaping in the entrance under the frames is certainly straight forward and very effective, although i have now adopted the access point in the rear of the brood box because of how my hives are arranged it makes it easier and the bees hardly notice,but if i push the spout too far in im up against a frame which should be avoided,i may try a hole drilled in the floor above the mesh,

as for a vaping hood i have tried this and it works great, although it is adding time to the operation,
due to my work commitments im usually running out of time and as the nights are drawing in i found myself vaping with a led flash light hanging around my neck, it still took less than 10 minutes to treat over 20 hives

john t

 

[Erichalfbee]

i may try a hole drilled in the floor above the mesh,



john t

Works for me

24 hour drops on my five 14x12s
50 30 10 4 4

 

[john t]

Dani

those mite drop numbers ,how many treatments have carried out so far ?

my plan is to do 3 treatments 5 days apart ,then i will do a count to see if a further vape is required

john t

 

[Erichalfbee]

Dani

those mite drop numbers ,how many treatments have carried out so far ?

my plan is to do 3 treatments 5 days apart ,then i will do a count to see if a further vape is required

john t

These are twenty four hour drops, after the first treatment. It's an accelerated mite drop if you like. All colonies have a substantial amount of brood, all the phoretic mites are down, so I can guesstimate that 80% of the varroa are in the brood. Multiply the number by 5 and you have a rough colony varroa total.
I don't have the nerve to not treat the two lowest but it looks like I don't need to.

The first count is the most useful
If mites are still dropping in large numbers after your third vape then do a fourth four days after.

I had a colony a few year back drop nearly 4K mites in a month. It had 7 vapes and I put in Apivar as a last resort.
The theory was that they were robbing a local mite bomb.
They survived