my first varroa count.

[Nige.Coll]

i am new to beekeeping . 3 weeks in and 1 course under my belt.

i put the board under the omf and left it for a week to do a varroa count .
when i pulled the board the varroa count was zero.
this surprised me as i was told i would need to treat by the person i bought the bees from.
i did notice quite a few earwigs above the crown board of the hive .
i looked on the internet and found that earwigs eat varroa and can lead to a false indication on the initial count.
i treated with apiguard and replaced the cleaned board a week ago.
last night i scraped the detritus from the board and put it into a plastic container and brought it home.
i added white spirit as i was taught and waited .
after it had settled there were about 200 dead varroa some floating and some at the bottom of the now messy looking soup.
i've seen a lot of posts about low varroa counts and just thought i would put this out there.

 

[Tom Bick]

Yes its a good heads up Nige

 

[enrico]

Steep learning curve! I had a nil count on one hive before treating, but treated anyway, 200 drop at least!
E

 

[Jimmys Mum]

I've decided to try MAQs on my two strongest hives, which are going on today if it brightens up, tomorrow otherwise. I'm a bit anxious about using it after reading about supercedure related outcomes on here but we'll see.

My other 2 hives and 2 nucs, all in the same Apiary, are all well underway with Apilife Var now. The two full sized hives have each dropped over 600 mites, one in just 5 days, the other in 13 days of treatment. God knows what the count will be at the end of the 4 weeks. So sadly, i guess the varroa mites are still thriving in my little corner of Berkshire!

I will be very interested to see how the mite drop on my 2 MAQ treated hives compares with those 2 on Apilife Var.

Oh and for the record, my natural mite drop recorded at the start of August was only 1-2 mites per day but I did see 2 cases of deformed wing virus recently. Horrid.
As a result, next year I'm going to try some drone brood culling as well as the winter oxalic acid and August thymol/Formic Acid treatments.

 

[lebouche]

Where abouts in Berkshire are you Jimmysmom?

 

[Skyhook]

I always oil my boards, a good thick coating of cooking oil. Sticks the mites in place, and trips up the ants and earwigs.


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