maqs, oa vaporize, other? Advice sought.

[dickndoris]

As a rule I monitor my inspection boards at least once a week ,when they are in and give them a scrape clean. Over the past few days two hives have shown an alarming drop in mites! 6-12 per 24 hrs as of yesterday. All hives have had a zero drop right through winter. Hive Makers thymol was used in Autumn and oa vaporize if needed around Late Dec.
So advice is sought on what might be the best plan of action from more experienced beeks ?
I have some maqs which im reluctant to use due to the high mortality rate and possible queen killer. She is three and very nice I keep bees the honey is a bi product and yes she is old.....maqs is a quick fix but I feel a little harsh?
I could oa vaporize which from experience has a very low if not almost zero mortality rate. Maybe do two rounds?
Change the frames and one oa vaporize?
Another plan maybe?

They are 14x12 poly hives with supers as brood also one with a wood floor the other poly as in Payxs.
All last year there was a very low mite count and zero on most hives. Only one hive late on was affected with very high mite count. I found this was due to some very dark bees entering and robbing, probabaly ferile. You could see them entering with mites on them! This hive is fine but maybe this has what has happened to these two hives as its happened pretty quick?

Cheers in advance

 

[oliver90owner]

Get on and treat!

You have ten other colonies and are worrying about two of them? If the queens go belly up, unite and split later. If you dally around, the colonies may go belly up and surviving bees drift to any other close-by colonies and take more varroa with them, so exacerbating the problem even further.

So many alternatives from shook swarm to, or with, any of the proprietary medications.

I have shook swarmed and then thymol treated, before any brood was capped, afterwards culling the first patch of capped brood. Simple enough and effective.

RAB

 

[JEP]

I have never used MAQS myself but as you have already bought some I would say that trying it on just 2 of your colonies that would benefit the most would seem to be an ideal trial situation for it. You can always buy imported queens in April if you lose the queens (which if they are 3 years old wouldn't be too much of a disaster). You would obviously need plenty of repeat oxalic vaporizations to have much impact on varroa populations when there is brood in the hive as most varroa will be sealed away.

The final alternative would be to wait another month then move both hives away a few feet. You could then put empty hives on the original sites and return the queens to the original sites plus a shake of young bees. You then have what are essentially two swarms in the original location which can be treated with oxalic very effectively. 25 days later you could then oxalic the two chambers which contained the brood and most of the young bees. If all went well these two chambers will now just contain bees and a new queen that will come into lay in a few days time. Obviously this won't help your honey crop but it will increase your number of hives. Depends on what you want really. The final plan could also be improved by taking measures to ensure that only one of the better queen cells is allowed to hatch in each of the "queen rearing" hives.

 

[Hivemaker.]

You would obviously need plenty of repeat oxalic vaporizations to have much impact on varroa populations when there is brood in the hive as most varroa will be sealed away.

Three treatments fives days apart is effective.

 

[Nige.Coll]

OA vaporizing isn't great if the bees are clustered.
it doesn't penetrate the cluster so doesn't kill as many mites.

never used maqs so no idea .
most Q deaths seemed to be from using 2 strips from what i have heard and read.

i would be careful with some treatments it could stop the queen laying .

vaporize some OA seems the easiest option with the least pitfalls.
should have good effect if your hive isn't raising drones yet.

 

[Hivemaker.]

should have good effect if your hive isn't raising drones yet.

Makes no difference if they are raising drones or not.

 

[Chris B]

I've never used MAQS, but if you're worried about valuable queens, why not make up some nucs using surplus bees and brood from some of your "clean" hives, and introduce the queen(s) to them. Treat the queenless infested hives and then unite to the nucs afterwards, having destroyed any queen cells they might have built. It's a fiddle but if the queens are worth it you could consider it. (Although there is also a risk with queen introduction if you don't take care).

What are the stats on MAQS killing queens anyway?

 

[enrico]

I treated four hives with MAQS in the autumn and didn't lose one queen to my knowledge! In my opinion this is the right reason for you to use MAQS. It is quick, and they will recover quickly. Yes you will lose some bees but hey, it's better than the whole hive.
E

 

[dickndoris]

Thanks all for your info / help. Decided to oa vap three times every five days. Just in now from doing it. 10 mins of fuss from the bees then back to normal it would seem.
Will try and remember to post on how they do and what kind of drop there is over the next few weeks. Getting a dodgy memory with age;-)
I use the varrox if any one was wondering.
R

 

[dickndoris]

So, after 24 hrs one hive had 120+ drop then 48 hrs 40+ then 4 days 12.
The other had a 19 then 10 then 1.
I also looked in on these colonies, as well as others a couple of days ago and found them to be very well indeed! Almost to the size in summer with a huge amount of stores and 8 frames of brood in both along with a few drone cells as in 20-30 in the top box.
Oxalic vaporizing I belive will become my main if not only fight against the mite. 10 Mins of upset for the bees then everything back to normal and no casualties unlike drizzle that is wet, sticky, they injest it in large amounts, casualties very often, have to expose colonies, cant think of anything good to say about it Dont get me wrong, I would much rather use nothing! I dont kill queen wasps either. Just put up an old nest as they are territorial and should stay clear.......until Autumn's arrival's.

 

[alanf]

If I can add some anecdotal. I asked a similar question earlier in the year, just one hive still appeared to be varroa ridden after autumn thymol and late December oxalic dribble. It was dropping around 12 varroa per day, same result from several samples of a few days each over a couple of weeks. Not easy to translate that into infestation rates in early March, but it suggests varroa in the hundreds.

I too opted for a Varrox. Based on something I found from the supplier, two doses two weeks apart to avoid (some of) the inaccessibility of mites in sealed brood. My total drop estimated at 700 mites, so worthwhile treating and whatever the percentage, that's 700 mites fewer. I'll be checking soon how well they are building into April and what the remaining mite estimate is from drops and drone forking.