Safe Varoa treatment now?

[poshpikey]

I have a daily mite count of 25-30. I have supers on. What is the best/safest treatment. I was planning to put some drone brood foundation in and remove when sealed. Thanks for any advice!

 

[region2]

Set aside supers and shook swarm!?

R2

 

[For want of a better word]

Set aside supers and shook swarm!?

R2

and vaporise with OA ?

 

[Finman]

I have a daily mite count of 25-30. !

Wait that weathers become normal and better. This is too cold to make trick. Them make an artificial swarm. Dont shake them.

- move the hive 10 feets.
- a new hive on the old site
- put into a new hive one frame of brood where the queen walks.
- 2- frames of food, plus what ever combs.

Wait 3 days that the bees move with wings to the new hive.
- then treat the hive with oxalic acid, tymol or formic acid. Mite are free and they are easy to kill.

Flying false swarm is good because bees do not leave the brood to catch cold.

### Licence to kill: after 10 days all brood has been capped in the brood hive and 95% of mites will be easy to kill. Aften 3 weeks all bees have emerged and the hive is clean. Now you join the hive parts.

Like in Original Dutcs research you may make another flying false swarm after 10 days. You separate again the brood and flying bees. Clean another part and join it to the old site hive. That speeds up the growth of the colony.

NOTE: a frame which you gove to the false swarm, take it away after 3 days and put it into brood hive.

Bees need a piece a brood that they feel chosy their life in their new hive. But that frame with queen has the queen nursers too.

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[Skyhook]

### Licence to kill: after 10 days all brood has been capped in the brood hive and 95% of mites will be easy to kill. Aften 3 weeks all bees have emerged and the hive is clean. Now you join the hive parts.


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I don't understand how you're cleaning the mites from the brood hive- do you wait for them all to emerge, then OA?

 

[Finman]

I don't understand how you're cleaning the mites from the brood hive- do you wait for them all to emerge, then OA?

Waiting to that it is long time and mites suck all the time new bees and weaken them. (+viruses)
Mites drift too to another hives. Drones are bad in drifting.

 

[MJBee]

Skyhook - 25 days after an AS the new queen will have emerged and (hopefully) mated but is unlikely to be laying. All the brood from the "old" queen will have emerged If at this point a frame of larvae is introduced most of the varroa will dive into it as they have no where else to mate. Once sealed this frame can be removed and destroyed.

 

[Chris B]

### Licence to kill: after 10 days all brood has been capped in the brood hive and 95% of mites will be easy to kill. Aften 3 weeks all bees have emerged and the hive is clean. Now you join the hive parts.

This sounds like a good plan but don't forget about queen cells which need to be removed before the virgins run amok.

My own approach would be to remove supers and add a 2nd brood box instead along with your varroa treatment of choice, and then just run as double brood until the population fills both boxes or they make queen cells, and split into 2 colonies at that point (with a new queen if necessary).

 

[poshpikey]

At the moment the bees are very busy - the oil seed rape is in flower and they have filled a super. I like the idea of the AS. Then taking the single transferred frame out of the original site when it is capped and freezing. This will also allow me to leave the supers on the original site. With the flow on they can either use it to draw comb or add stores. If the queen is on a frame with sealed brood can I move her onto a frame of unsealed brood when I do the AS?

Can I also apiguard the original BB on the new site as there are no supers on it? (What is the best treatment where there is brood? I like MJBees idea of the larvae introduction.

Also can I do an AS when there are no queen cells? Will that mean that they raise a new queen that will not be as good as a queen where the egg was laid in a queen cup?

This is my second season and I have to say that I find bees absolutely fascinating and highly addictive. I am just starting to get a feel for it and with all the above discussion realise how vital it is to understand the timings for eggs/larvae/sealed brood.

Thank you all for your help - it has been completely invaluable and very informative. Just need some better weather now ......

 

[Finman]

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run as double brood until the population fills both boxes or they make queen cells, .

Personaly, if they were my hives, I would wait natural swarming.

BUT THIS:

I have a daily mite count of 25-30.!

Seems bad. I would not wait any more.

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[robsbees]

just wondering what action you took with your hive?

 

[poshpikey]

I did the artificial swarm and removed the one frame from the original site and froze it after a week. Reversed hive bodies a week after AS. Fed the queenless BB with syrup throughout (ashforth). 16 days after AS went through and found one hatched queen cell. removed other qcs. Keeping fingers crossed that she mates. Will look again soon.

The things I think I might have done better were:

Remove supers from original site and put a feeder on to help them draw comb in BB. I had thought that with the OSR they would have been alright but this weather blew that!

I had slightly dithered about putting a feeder on rather than taking supers off because the supers generally had quite a few bees in them.

I am still wondering if I should lift supers off tomorrow when I go through them. Shake bees out and put an ashforth feeder on and then store the supers above the ashforth feeder. Thus help the bees to make wax (the weather is supposed to warm a bit soon??) and forget about hoping that OSR honey might end up in supers. Last time I looked they had drawn a couple of frames out and there was sealed brood but no eggs. I tried to help her by taking some drawn frames from the bb on the new site.

Make any sense??

thanks for asking about how I got on and thankyou to all the people who gave advice. I have read a lot of books but after a while the practical advice becomes a lot more help as many books don't go into enough detail.