thymol result???

[biglongdarren]

i had one hive that had an extremely heavy dose of varroa,placed hivemakers recipe in on saturday the 1st september,taped all the gaps and joints up,made the entrance down to 2inches and this is the result after two days....i was in shock when i first looked!
Darren

 

[Oscarmonster]

Wow

 

[WelshPaul]

Good god.

 

[Tom Bick]

Wow that is high and I was thinking one of my drops at approx 200 over the first week was high.

Just out of any interest is there any brood in the hive?

Hope you have caught it just in time.

 

[Ely]

My oxalic last xmas looked something like that

 

[TOBY-3652]

even mine didnt look like that.. that sure is a lot of mites.. mind you im getting there. one of mine has dropped 3000 in 14 days

 

[Finman]

.
Does the hive have larva brood still?
80% are under cappings.

 

[Holly Bees]

Did you use the "tissue" method or the "oasis" method out of interest?

 

[biglongdarren]

i used the oasis and yes there is capped brood in the hive,it was the only hive that i have that i really noticed bees with deformed wings and all. i'll let the tray still in for the week then maybe try and count them and then clean it and place it back in.
Darren

 

[Pooh Bear]

Eeeeeuw! Were any of them still alive? Some young mites were still crawling around when I was counting mine... gave me the creeps.

 

[Holly Bees]

cheers Darren!

 

[VEG]

Wow good luck trying to count that lot lol

 

[Tom Bick]

i used the oasis and yes there is capped brood in the hive,it was the only hive that i have that i really noticed bees with deformed wings and all. i'll let the tray still in for the week then maybe try and count them and then clean it and place it back in.
Darren

Cheers Darren the reason I asked if the hive had brood was as we know up to 80% of varroa will be in sealed brood and if your hive for what ever reason had a brood brake and no sealed brood a drop like that would not be so bad. As you have brood then you will see plenty more varroa to come.

It will be interesting to see how the drop goes over the next six weeks.

 

[biglongdarren]

my other hives that i am treating now have that little that i could count them,i cant understand why this one has so many,all the hives were treated with oxalic acid in january,not unless i forgot to do this one but i am near sure i did.
Darren

 

[biglongdarren]

and i never noticed any alive poor bear,though given the amount of them they would have been easy to miss.
Darren

 

[the naked beekeeper]

how heavy a dose was it when you say heavy?

I wonder whether i can let the oasis soak up the maximum it can, or just give them the 20ml?

 

[biglongdarren]

how heavy a dose was it when you say heavy?

I wonder whether i can let the oasis soak up the maximum it can, or just give them the 20ml?

it was the only hive that i noticed alot of bees walking about in with deformed wings and poorly looking, i give it a good 3hours to soak in,in all fairness it probably could have sat longer.
Darren.

 

[Teemore]

I have one particular colony that I'll be clearing the honey off this week and treating: I am expecting a heavy varroa count as it is the only one of my hives in which i have seen phoretic mites this season and it is also the only one that has ever had more than one or two mites present when I have uncapped a sample of drone brood to check for varroa.
I think part of the reason for what I consider to be a high number of mites is that this colony did not swarm this year. Four or five frames of brood and bees were taken off it during the season so far but that clearly hasn't been enough to deplete the varroa load to any great degree.

Darren, out of interest, did your hive swarm this season or is it a colony built up from an early nuc or split?

 

[itma]

Darren (and others) -- while the bodycount may be impressive, what matters most is the level of the residual problem after treatment.


I'd suggest checking for (at least) a few days about a fortnight after finishing treatment.

One school of thought is that, after interfering with varroa's population dynamics (as with a brood break), you need to monitor (and average) over at least 14 days to get a true measure of the new population - because the varroa's age distribution will not be typical of a 'natural' population.

 

[itma]

...
I think part of the reason for what I consider to be a high number of mites is that this colony did not swarm this year. ...

I'm going to say that I think you may have cause and effect the wrong way round.

isn't it more likely that it didn't swarm because it wasn't as vigorous as the others, and that the lack of vigour was, in turn, down to varroa?


// And anyway, on swarming, its the departing swarm that is largely varroa-free (only a few phoretic mites), and the vast majority of the varroa are left behind in the 'parent' hive, albeit then suffering a brood break.