Rooftops, my results are in!

[Skyhook]

A while ago, Rooftops posted a thread asking about peoples mite drops (see here)

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8021

At the time I said I would post mine when I had all the figures, so here goes.

In August I was getting a drop of 30/day, so started Apiguard. In the first fortnight I got 827, in the 2nd fortnight 697, and still dropping about 70/day, so added a third tray and left for another fortnight in which I got 837. I took this off, as by now it was 5th October and the queen had gone off lay. A week later she was laying again, but I'd had another 345 mites.

I then added apistan and in the first 8 days got 490. I then got worried they were too closed up, so I took the board out for a week; but after that tested again and finally got to a drop of 0 by 9/11- A drop of around 3,300 over 11 weeks.

By December I was getting a few mites dropping again, which by the beebase calculator suggested a population of around 150.

Treated with Trickle 2 on 27/12. Daily mite falls (slightly smoothed on a graph due to erratic inspections) were: 70, 56, 16, 8, 5, 3, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1- 167 mites over 14 days, with pretty much 90% in the first week. At the moment (day 16), the drop is continuing around 1/day.

Amazingly, the bees seem OK!

 

[Finman]

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1000 mites is a critical level. With those numbers the hive is not ok.

But German say: as long as a human farts, he is alive.

About bees we may say: as long as mites drop, the hive is alive!

 

[Skyhook]

When I got my bees they were on a solid floor. I did some drone uncapping in the summer, and saw not a single mite. When I took the supers off I swopped them onto an OMF, and at that point realised they were dropping 30/day, so started treatment. I consider myself to have had a lucky escape.

 

[RoofTops]

I think you can sew your Boy Scout "Mite Counting Proficiency" badge on your bee suit now.

Sounds as if you have got on top of the mites for the moment and interesting that within a few weeks of finishing the Apistan treatment you had mites showing again. This suggests a degree of resistance which is not unexpected.

Main worry as Finman suggests is the damage that is likely to have been done to the bees by the varroa. Fingers crossed!

 

[Finman]

Sounds as if you have got on top of the mites for the moment and interesting that within a few weeks of finishing the Apistan treatment you had mites showing again.


This suggests a degree of resistance which is not unexpected.

M

there is no expected resistancy. if it exists, you should find tens of mites daily under mesh.

I wondered too, how fast mites come again and why the hive stand so much mites.

I encline to believe that there is some feral hive in neigbourhood which is weak by mites and your hive robb the "mite bank" . Or even several weak hives. It gets a huge mite load from that hive.

If the hive drops 3000 mites, it should not have any more living winter bees. Mites concentare into last brood and emerged bees will be mostly wingless porriage.

 

[oliver90owner]

Th main problem is that a large % of your wintering bees will already have the infective ravishes from the varroa reproducing in those cells. Those bees are likely to be carriers of all sorts of pathogens derived from the varroa mite and nymphs feeding on the pupa. That is before the phoretic mites are feeding on worker bees.

This is why I say the autumn treatment is far more important Get rid of the mites before the wintering bees pupate and the chance of those bees surviving the whole winter is so, so much better.

Some beeks need to remember that a shook swarm in spring can easily remove over 90% of the mites (followed up by removing the first couple of small patches of capped brood).

Artificial swarms are another super way to attack the varroa in, say, May. Both halves are eminently treatable, as they will contain only phoretic mites at one time or another.

Couple these with Thymol and other IPM options and the mites can be effectively controlled at the important times of the year. Adequate mite-drop checks (easily done even with a solid floor), coupled with careful observance when inspecting the colony to recognise the early signs of building infestation is the way to go IMO.

I reiterate, I am not anti oxalic acid as a weapon in the war against varroa, just against the blind, automatic trickle treatment as advocated by some.

Most of us are not bee farmers and don't have enough colonies to need to carry out blanket treatments for all and sundry risks. Whatever we do, varroa will be an on-going problem, for most, for the foreseeable future, oxalic acid treatment or not. You cannot rely on oxalic to avoid any other treatment; the varroa will still be present after whatever treatment is applied. Go figure.

Regards, RAB

 

[Mike a]

I couldn't agree more Rab

 

[Finman]

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Hey Oliver. I used oxalic acid automatically, but still, unlike you say, it does not make me blind.

You are not valid to say others blind. You have not licence to that. you have nothing against oxalic acid but users are blind. Jep, it means that 90% of beekeepers. Herre Gud!


Why oa makes beekeepers mad and blind too? Öh!

 

[Finman]

I couldn't agree more Rab

yeah! He is a fanatic speaker!

But varroa does not earn so much glory and even daily.

 

[Skyhook]

Th main problem is that a large % of your wintering bees will already have the infective ravishes from the varroa reproducing in those cells. Those bees are likely to be carriers of all sorts of pathogens derived from the varroa mite and nymphs feeding on the pupa. That is before the phoretic mites are feeding on worker bees.

This is why I say the autumn treatment is far more important Get rid of the mites before the wintering bees pupate and the chance of those bees surviving the whole winter is so, so much better.

Regards, RAB

I quite agree. That's why I was treating continuously from the 20th August. However, unless my hive has a built-in mite dispenser which I haven't spotted yet, they seem very prone to mites- poor hygienic behaviour?- and the oxalic was neccesary AS WELL.

 

[oliver90owner]

Skyhook,

the oxalic was neccesary AS WELL.

In your position, likely a yes from me. Your winter bees were obviously badly affected by the earlier heavy mite infestation. Had that not been the case THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES and a hundred and fifty mites is managable later in the season.

As Finman says: 1000 mites is a critical level.

Your scenario is not an ideal one. If the mites had been kept at lower levels earlier, you may not have had the current infestation level. Also, look at it this way, your bees were apparently getting by at those huge mite levels. Not all colonies could sustain that mite loading. They would have succumbed, there is little doubt of that. Now, if your oxalic mite drop had been fifteen, we have a different situation entirely. If you intend to change the queen later this year, doing an oxalic acid treatment would matter not, as she will only get the one dose, so by all means do it.

I don't subscribe to the only one way is automatic oxalic treatment group. There are other ways and beekeepers should be just as aware of the alternatives, and not blindly rely on one treatment regime.

Regards, RAB

 

[Finman]

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Oliver, you need to subscribe anything.
I kill mites without counting them. I am not interested and i have no time to that

counting helps nothing. Some day however amout is so high that you need to poison mites. Have you then proper time to do that.

Winter without brood is the most efficient situation to kill mites and oxalic acid is only stuff in middwinter. That is a fact without your opinion. You may count so mmuch mites as you like.

High mite values may surprise experiencer beekeepers too. To minimize surprises i handle them automatic. there is nothing bad in the method.
Varroa doest not command my life and I do run after that miserable bugg. I try to make honey.
No money, no honey.

 

[Finman]

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Many here use only thymol slices during autumn feeding here.
But minimum death rate during winter have those who use thymol+oxalic acid. - or formic acid +oxalic acid.

Count or not, it help nothing.

It is like listening with tethoscope. Your hear if they ppprrr something, if not, what then?

 

[bobandbec]

If I'm understanding some recent posts reference the application of OA they seem to suggest that a queen will only tolerate one trickle treatment.

Can I just say that this is not something that I have experienced in practice.

I have quite a few queens that have gone through two Winters, and therefore two applications of OA, and gone onto a second or third full season with good results.

Is there actually any evidence that a second dose of OA adversely affects the queens properties?

Peter

 

[Finman]

Is there actually any evidence that a second dose of OA adversely affects the queens properties?

Peter

our varroa rearcher have done 4 years repeated trickling, in october and in March. He have not any proplems.

At leats most winterlosses are queens and reason is nosema. Same problems have been before oxalix acid .

One thing to queen losses is that if you prevent the queen excange in autumn, they succeed in winter.

Any evidence? Winter trickling haas been used about 10 years. Tens of researhing raports has been published. What has been found?

Second treatment is recommended if first trickling went wrong, like I did it too early.

But if you follow the main recipe, everything will be OK.



Trickling is now so much used that there is no doupt how it works. After 5 yerar usage it shoud be normal procedure without to be afraid.

 

[Finman]

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Many beekeepers seems to be afraid more of oxalic acid than varroa. What are we then talking about? There are 20 good killing method for varroa. Use them if OA is so tremendous.

 

[Skyhook]

our varroa rearcher have done 4 years repeated trickling, in october and in March. He have not any proplems.

At leats most winterlosses are queens and reason is nosema. Same problems have been before oxalix acid .

Sounds rather like the MMR scare. 'My child had the MMR jab then got ill, therefore MMR made him ill' Sadly, some children get ill, and if most children are having MMR, sometimes the two will happen around the same time. It's not causative, and actually not that much of a coincidence. If most hives that die are killed by nosema, and nosema kills hives in winter, and OA is applied in winter, it's not that surprising that sometimes people apply OA then the queen or the colony dies.

 

[Finman]

.

We got in lat beekeeping magazine the results of winter losses survey. The last winter was very hard. Luckily thick snow protected hives.

However, the best surviving percent was with those who used autum treatment thymol/formic + trickling..

So how can we say that "blind" varroa killing is bad if douple killing gives best resuullts.


Late summer treatment protects winter bee brood.
OA treatment hits mite level so low that it will not generate danger to next winter bees.

It is so simle. But if you do not like, do as you like. But it is very stupid to use all kinds of unefficient tricks and you believe that is your personal "hobby science". And some day you will get Nobel price for that. Only what you get is loosing honey yields.

As we have talked here, if you need to do something like false swar. Mite killing jump ahead main treatmets. It is everywhere. It commans all. Why, because the beekeeper does not know what he is actully doing.

 

[mbc]

Anecdotally, some big beekeeping enterprises in the uk give an oxalic trickle to their bees every time the bees are looked into all season. There doesnt appear to be any queen mortality over and above the usual with this regime and the resulting honey does not exceed oxalic acid residue limits.
Personally, I wouldnt dream of drenching my bees with a sugary slightly acidic solution each time I open them, but I cant understand the antipathy towards a well documented, effective, annual winter treatment.
The idea that oxalic is harmful and essential oils (or thymol ) are kind fluffy treatments is bullshit - you'd have to drink pints of 3.5% oxalic solution to register any ill effects while a tiny amount of thymol would have you immediately hospitalised with very obvious symptoms. With bees, after an oxalic treatment, theres never been any observable difference to my eyes( apart from accelerated mite drop ) whereas after a thymol application I've observed colonies absconding (totally abandoning their poisoned nest! ) or abandoning areas of brood directly under the thymol treatment and re-establishing a nest further away in the same box or sometimes if they stick with their original brood it can look awful a weak to a fortnight after the first application. The first time I saw this affect I thought my bees had some serious brood disease - fortunately the bees generally recover and if the mite load was getting heavy before the treatment then more good than harm is done with athymol treatment - I know because after my first shocking experience with apiguard I stopped believing the blurb blindly and only treated half my colonies with it hte following autumn - experience is a hard teacher and I lost nearly half the colonies that didnt get a thymol treatment in the autumn despite a midwinter oxalic application , whereas with the treated half the majority survived.
I still think thymol is vicious compared to oxalic but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

 

[oliver90owner]

antipathy

None from me. I just get hissed off because some advocate it to all beeks regardless. I simply try to redress the balance, by demonstrating it need not always be used automatically; and that it doesn't make a jot of difference to those that requeen each year, so they are free to do it without regard for any warnings about dosing the queen more than once in her lifetime.

Others may not be requeening every year and perhaps need to be a little more conservative with their chemical sloshing and just stop and consider whether they actually need to do it, for the sake of the bees - or for the sake of their pocket.

I, too, do not use apiguard (very often). But I do not advocate all beeks to follow my regime, as some may get into trouble......I certainly have to think about what I am doing and when. I prefer that way to some of the alternatives.

RAB