Spring varroa treatment

[Repwoc]

Does anyone do a Spring treatment? If so, what is it and when do you do it? Formic?

 

[sputnam]

I use Apiguard, 2 treatments as per instructions, 1st is usually late March. (early I know, but I like to complete the treatment before the spring flow)

 

[grizzly]

This Spring i am going to do a shook swarm on some hives to give them a fresh start.

Not done one before, so looking forward to it and seeing how the Bees get on afterward.

 

[Finman]

This Spring i am going to do a shook swarm on some hives to give them a fresh start.

Not done one before, so looking forward to it and seeing how the Bees get on afterward.

Very stupid idea...You make more harm to your bees than that miserable varroa.

 

[grizzly]

You are entitled to your opinion Finman, however there are some who would dissagree with you.

Last year on the colony i lost, i used a variety of methods, dusting, hiveclean, super frame with drone comb removal, Apiguard, thymol in syrup and the varroa mite still managed to win. (is a year of high varroa numbers less harmful than a month playing catchup ?????)

I think my larger colonies will benefit from this method.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Grizzly, you could give HP'S method a go,method below,takes a bit of time mind,but effective.

now lets see if we can in thearoy get you completly varroa free by the weekend, in theroy you would have an over wintering sized nest say 5,000 bees, just for easy and simplisity lets say 10,000 bees and lets say we have a varroa might drop that would be say roughly 90% dropping that means you are now holding a hive that has 9,000 varroa free bees and 1,000 dirty ones, so what I have done on several hives and it is sad and very extreme but just play it out , 1,000 dirty bees, if we now remove the hive to the side of the stand i used two seperate places in the bee shed, light gennerator a magifying lens and other junk, so any way new bee hive filled with fresh plain foundation and one found queen all i did was link the two hives with a small length of clear plastic hose pipe with a small notch cut in it small enough for a bee to escape but only if i moved my finger in front of the notch is a small hole to stuff a match stick in to block it and then all you do is get the girls to walk along the hose pipe and you pick the dirty ones of, just dont forget to have a mirror under the pipe to check for under mites, it took me a whole day 10 hours to do it but it did work and the bee hive is then VARROA FREE

 

[grizzly]

or I could pick off the mites with a pair of tweezers

 

[BKF Admin]

Finman are you saying a shook swarm is a waste of time because in Finland you dont have enough time to recover due to the short harvest time?

 

[ian]

Hi


Hives treated with a shook swarm can recover very well with the advantage of clean comb and lower mite load. However if you practice judicious comb change and have already used Oxalic then why bother..............Jobs already done.


Regards Ian

 

[Finman]

You are entitled to your opinion Finman, however there are some who would dissagree with you.

.

They are your bees. Do what you want. I have not problems with my bees.

 

[Finman]

Finman are you saying a shook swarm is a waste of time because in Finland you dont have enough time to recover due to the short harvest time?

No one here use shake swarms against varroa because there are 20 better way to get rid of varroa. I have had varroa 29 years. Nothing to be learned from this gang.

I want to get honey from hives 60-80 kg per hive. I get nothing entertainment from varroa kicking.

We have here basic concepts thymol, formic acid and trickling. No problems after that.

 

[Finman]

Our spring treatment in Finland is recommended: WHEN THE MAIN TREATMENT DID NOT WORKED

1) The second trickling after cleansing flight with OA (yes, you see right)

2) thymol gasifying when day temp is over 15C

3) formic acid gasifying when day temp is over 15C

Our researcher Seppo Korpela is in European varroa group and he tells allways if they do some progress in mite killing. We need not to act on hobby level.

 

[BKF Admin]

Finman are you in the "sugar dusting does not work" camp?

 

[Finman]

Finman are you in the "sugar dusting does not work" camp?

Sugar dusting was developed in Helsinki University Finland and you Admin have surely seen that it does not work and it is hobby level job.

This doctor studies of Kamran FAKHIMZADEH

Effectiveness of confectioner sugar dusting
to knock down Varroa destructor
from adult honey bees in laboratory trials

Kamran FAKHIMZADEH*
Department of Applied Zoology, PO Box 27 (Viikki C),
00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
(Received 26 June 2000; revised 4 September 2000; accepted 27 December 2000)


Yes I want to be as far from top bar & sugar dust camp as pepper grows.

But Internet makes that no hope for that.


.

 

[Finman]

Shake bees and then give the sugar dust

This hive gove 150 kg honey. bees must work, not waste time in grooming sugar dust from themselves.

 

[Repwoc]

I use Apiguard

That surely will take over a month. Is there time to do that between the temperature getting high enough for it to be effective, two Apiguard treatments, time for Thymol to clear from hives, before putting on supers?

Our spring treatment in Finland is recommended: WHEN THE MAIN TREATMENT DID NOT WORKED

Does that mean the mid-winter trickle?

1) The second trickling after cleansing flight with OA (yes, you see right)

2) thymol gasifying when day temp is over 15C

3) formic acid gasifying when day temp is over 15C

Does anyone else use Formic acid in spring? How long does it take?

 

[Finman]

Does that mean the mid-winter trickle?

Does anyone else use Formic acid in spring? How long does it take?

Spring means here May if we look the day temp demand.

 

[Haughton Honey]

Spring means here May if we look the day temp demand.

It's looking like May here too if the current weather is anything to go by!

 

[MrB]

Does anyone here use 'Comb trapping' as a varroa control method?
(Perhaps not in spring)

 

[RoofTops]

If you mean queen trapping then no, it takes about a month to complete and during this time there is no new brood emerging. I have been told the queen lays strongly afterwards but I still favour a shook swarm as the queen can start laying straight afterwards. I fully accept it is not suitable for areas with a short season but here in most of the UK it works if carried out in the Spring.