more late Varroa? Second treatment?

[Nic Rhodes]

It may seem odd to ask but in this warm weather....., Varroa might be growing rapidly again atm to levels too high for winter bees. Should we be monitoring again now and possibly treating again due to these unseasonal warm weather where the bees continue to brood. The reason I ask is Dad collected a load of rejects from hive front today that had deformed wings and loads of Varroa mites. The hive had Apiguard Thymol treatments in september. If the weather is unseasonal should we be changing our beekeeping to compensate? I would be interested if anyone is seeing an increase in Varroa levels atm.

 

[drstitson]

DWV will relate to viral load in the colony overall so may reflect picture before treatment BUT lots of visible mites on the bees is a bad sign IMHO.

 

[Finman]

.
Mites have grown during brood period perhaps from Marsh to September (7 months). Then you slow the amount down. They have not much time to grow now in 2 moths. but look, Britain is not special place which has warm weather and brood continues growing.

Look the map of Europe. Every country from Britain to south has bees and mites.
You should not worry about it.

How many mites are alive after winter, it rules, how quickly load developes in hives.

 

[itma]

It may seem odd to ask but in this warm weather....., Varroa might be growing rapidly again atm to levels too high for winter bees. Should we be monitoring again now and possibly treating again due to these unseasonal warm weather where the bees continue to brood. ...

Monitoring? Yes.
Treating? Depends on what you find - not that there are many treatment options in November.

 

[Queens59]

If it was me I'd check drop levels for a couple of weeks - and as long as it isn't too bad try Oxalic in December...even though I hate oxalic...

 

[jezd]

It may seem odd to ask but in this warm weather.....

too late now for Apiguard re warm weather, much colder weather is due within a days

if your in Cumbria you will notice the weather shift in St Bees

I am going make assumptions now so sorry if incorrect, you have 13 colonies so will have some experience in beekeeping - have you done any monitoring on mites yourself? did you have a second plan of attack re mites management? or was apiguard your only planned treatment?

We have cold conditions here today, and whilst bees have been busy on some days its been nothing major - stores are still very high here.

Finman has a point, if apiguard was applied correctly it should have knocked numbers of mites down dramatically and 2 months since should not have seen a massive increase as of today.

I think....

 

[mazzamazda]

I was thinking about buying a budget vapouriser from *bay, just for the meantime, any ideas for or against?

 

[Nic Rhodes]

yes experienced beekeeper of 35 years, Dad has 75 years of bee experience under his belt....My grandfather before that..

Varroa is monitored and treated regularly. Have family experrience of varroa going back to mid 90s when Kent was hit.

Oxalic is bought and ready for december treatment on hives. That is the current plan but got thinking.

The reason for the question is the weather which is different this year (actually been terrible here, worst year I can remember) so should we change our style to reflect the weather. Currently it is too descriptive and the forum is slow tonight... I undertand and know about temperatures re treatments but this level of free mites is unusual in my experience out the front of the hive in late november!

 

[Skyhook]

I put the monitoring board in a couple of weeks ago, and was getting 8/day from my strongest colony. The bebase calculator says 560 mites, treat ASAP. Now the calculator is only a best guess, it could be less than that, or twice as many.

I was intending OA in December, but a) I'm wondering if that's too long to wait, and b) if the weather doesn't change soon, there ain't gonna be a brood break. I'm wondering if I should do something now, but what? They were treated with thymol in September, but that was 2 months ago, so I guess I had (say) 140 left. I could put more thymol treatment in, but is it warm enough? (around 13 C). I could use Apistan (yes it does work here), but probably not enough time for a proper treatment, and using it improperly is what causes problems. Maybe I should just sugar them to put a dent in their growth curve, then OA as intended to get as many as possible.

But if I was seeing mites on bees at the entrance, I would certainly do something.

 

[jezd]

Its December next week

I dont think you can apply policy across the board, perhaps its one hive with issues or is down to the timing of treatments - are others in your location seeing the same issues?

 

[oliver90owner]

If the weather is unseasonal should we be changing our beekeeping to compensate?

You are surely not a beekeeper who only does things by the date given in a particular book?

One should beekeep according to the weather, their needs, etc, not by the date.

So, of course you take account of different conditions - but you should already be doing this not 'complaining' that conditions are not exactly as the book predicted!

RAB

 

[mazzamazda]

If the weather is unseasonal should we be changing our beekeeping to compensate?

You are surely not a beekeeper who only does things by the date given in a particular book?

One should beekeep according to the weather, their needs, etc, not by the date.

So, of course you take account of different conditions - but you should already be doing this not 'complaining' that conditions are not exactly as the book predicted!

RAB

I think we should be thinking that way.

 

[oliver90owner]

The hive had Apiguard Thymol treatments in september.

Think about it . Two months down the line there are likely four times as many mites as at the end of the thymol treatment. Now, did it work effectively? That is where checking the mite levels to get some clue becomes a useful tool.

Mite levels should be nowhere near critical if the treatment worked properly. If not....

RAB

 

[itma]

...
Varroa is monitored and treated regularly. ...

Oxalic is bought and ready for december treatment on hives. That is the current plan but got thinking.

The reason for the question is the weather which is different this year (actually been terrible here, worst year I can remember) so should we change our style to reflect the weather. ...

"Style"? Or treatment routine?

I've got this daft idea that the thing was not to do treatment purely by the calendar, but to (monthly at least) check the mite drop, and 'do stuff' appropriately to the situation inside and outside the hive.


The impression I have been getting (maybe wrongly!) from reading the forum is that more than a few folk stuck the Apiguard in this year and didn't spot that they still had rather a lot of mites after their 'standard treatment'.
Whether that was because of cool weather during treatment combined with monitoring the kill rather than the drop after treatment was finished, I don't know.

The success or otherwise of a major treatment is not measured by the body count. Its properly measured by the number of survivors.
Seems like there have been more survivors than generally expected, and a longer, milder Autumn for the mite population to rebuild while there are brood cells aplenty.
Now, as the brood diminishes, more of the mites would necessarily be (more visibly) on the adult bees.

 

[drstitson]

"I've got this daft idea that the thing was not to do treatment purely by the calendar"

yes but rather limited in that a 6 week treatment has to be fitted in between removing supers and temperatures dropping significantly!!!!

or perhaps we should be following some of our continental neighbours and blasting the bees with oxalic acid at every opportunity.

 

[Storm™]

Ok I'll say it - Itma - how can you successfully assume mite numbers by anything else other than drop count and estimates based on that. You treat - large drop (not in all cases I know) but an increase. Then monitor. Drop .... Drops off to a smaller level. If drop rate is still large - continue treatment. Very roughly that's it. You said it should be measured by the number of survivors. Short of inspecting every bee I can't understand.

I would think that given the warmer temps and less or minimal to no brood left the remainder would be on the bees. As they clean or move the varroa drop off. So monitoring drop rate is even more key than before. Unless I missed your point and I'm sorry if I did. I get that it's not good practice to treat by date but rather results of what you monitor and I agree. But that conflicts with what you said no? And does this mean you are suggesting an early OA treatment based on observations of .... ?

 

[Skyhook]

The hive had Apiguard Thymol treatments in september.

Think about it . Two months down the line there are likely four times as many mites as at the end of the thymol treatment. Now, did it work effectively? That is where checking the mite levels to get some clue becomes a useful tool.

Mite levels should be nowhere near critical if the treatment worked properly. If not....

RAB

The impression I have been getting (maybe wrongly!) from reading the forum is that more than a few folk stuck the Apiguard in this year and didn't spot that they still had rather a lot of mites after their 'standard treatment'.
Whether that was because of cool weather during treatment combined with monitoring the kill rather than the drop after treatment was finished, I don't know.

There are no complete solutions. The best you could hope for would be say a 95% kill. If you had a mite population of 2,000, that would leave 100 survivors. 2 months later, that's 400- not far off what I seem to have. The fact is that it is a continuing battle, and the long mild autumn has swung things in the mites favour.

As for measuring the population after treatment- yes, it's a valid point, but there is still the question of what are you going to do if you have a high population? Given that high thymol levels can inhibit laying, leaving the treatment on longer could have a very real effect on the age and size of your wintering population.

 

[Storm™]

An right i see what Itma is saying - for survivor rate read - monitored drop rate after treatment is finished not what's seen on the adult bees as your indicator.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

- are others in your location seeing the same issues?

hence my question really, to see if others had higher might levels than normal. I don't know on my hives and suspect others aren't monitoring either atm so they don't know. If they don't know and have varroa again in more than desirable numbers then the obvious next treatment is oxalic acid nect month, however there are many that may want to 'coast' and just rely on september thymol and skip this oxalic stage desite a potential bigger problem this year.

I will monitor mine this weekend to see drop levels but i suspect we will see higher levels this year, just as many beekeepers are taking hives in this winter too low on stores.

 

[CB008]

I definitely have higher mite levels than I would like. I used Api in August and thought that I had done the trick but warm weather has been providing a fertile breeding ground for increase. My solution has been a weekly hiveclean treatment but it was too cold to open the top last Sunday. They have also been using up stores at a prestigious rate.