Treating Varroa now - any suggestions.

[Pooh Bear]

My national has survived the winter, but are heavily infested with varroa.

Any suggestions what I could do at this time of the year?

I'd like to dust with icing sugar - any suggestions for effective puffing?

Thank you.

 

[fatshark]

If it's that bad I'd do a shook swarm and OA treatment. Depending on the strength of the colony of course. I'm not a great believer in the sugar treatment as most of the mites are going to be in capped brood. If the colony are precious, good queen etc. forego any early crop and treat them thoroughly.

Tough love

 

[mbc]

My national has survived the winter, but are heavily infested with varroa.

Any suggestions what I could do at this time of the year?

Apiguard, apivar, apistan or bayvarol (if you know your mites arent fluvalinate resistant), drone brood sacrifice, brood sacrifice and oxalic drizle or lactic acid spray, formic acid, or caumophos if you want to go down the VMD cascade organophosphate route.

I'd like to dust with icing sugar - any suggestions for effective puffing?

on a cake ? or your armpits ?

Thank you.

..

 

[oliver90owner]

or your armpits ?

Don't be silly - that's talcum powder!! Sugar and perspiration would not be a nice combination - would likely either ferment or attract the bees!!

 

[Black Comb]

You forgot to mention Queen trapping

 

[Luminos]

Putting my head above the parapet here - would MAQS be appropriate?

 

[itma]

My national has survived the winter, but are heavily infested with varroa.

Any suggestions what I could do at this time of the year?

I'd like to dust with icing sugar - any suggestions for effective puffing?

Thank you.

Sugar dusting is pretty ineffectual.
At best it slows the rate of varroa increase if used weekly.
It simply is not the answer to a major infestation.

By all means try it (every week) after your major problem is cleared to try and keep control. Don't let yourself think it will regain control.

.Apiguard, apivar, apistan or bayvarol (if you know your mites arent fluvalinate resistant), drone brood sacrifice, brood sacrifice and oxalic drizle or lactic acid spray, formic acid, or caumophos if you want to go down the VMD cascade organophosphate route..

You might use pesticides (Apistan/Bayvarol or even coumaphos) but these can leave residues in wax - so shouldn't be used when cut-comb honey is on the hive (ordinary honey supposedly OK, but I really don't like that idea). And your mites may already be resistant - partly depending on whether you have used them before.
Apiguard and other Thymol treatments can, in theory, be used in spring, before supering. Bit of a question about efficacy if it is cold, though.
You could use 'biotechnical' methods like drone brood culling, shook swarm or queen trapping, but these generally have the effect of a brood-break, if applied rigorously to achieve a big % varroa reduction (or don't give that big a % - like drone brood culling when there is a major varroa problem).
Oxalic and Lactic will harm open brood and not touch varroa in sealed brood.
Formic, as such, is very nasty stuff for the beek.

There are also the "hive sanitisers" like VarroaGard, which can supposedly be used at any time. My feeling is that they aren't potent enough to squash a major infestation fast.

Putting my head above the parapet here - would MAQS be appropriate?

MAQS is Formic but in a much more beek-safe formulation. Rubber gloves are the only chemical protection needed.
Should be effective.
Likely to cause loss of open brood.
But hits mites in sealed cells (where the majority of the mites hide).
Some risk of queen loss. Reported as a small risk.
Main problem seems to be in treating when the weather is too hot.

I think it sounds as though you are in exactly the right situation to try out the new product!

 

[Pooh Bear]

Thank you all.
I'm afraid they're not the 'fluffy' answers I was hoping for - but then varroa are nasty wee buggers.

 

[itma]

Thank you all.
I'm afraid they're not the 'fluffy' answers I was hoping for - but then varroa are nasty wee buggers.

Being 'over the water' you may not have seen the UK standard pamphlet on varroa and its treatment.
Link for 'Managing Varroa' is here http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21261

"Fluffy"? Take a look at the 'biotechnical' section of the booklet - its more doing stuff than giving them stuff.

However if you have, as per your first post, a "heavy" infestation, then you need to do something serious, and seriously quickly.
Towards the back of "Managing Varroa" there is a graph of mite drop per day in different months to be considered 'serious'.
Basically 10/day at any time of the year IS serious. At that level if you don't do something effective and promptly, you WILL lose the colony.

Good luck!

 

[pargyle]

If it's this bad is there a case for a shook swarm - sugar dust as you do it - get rid of the existing brood and just keep any stores. It's going to set you back but with new frames and some kind weather and foraging they should go off like a train building new comb. At least you have a clean hive to start with and perhaps MAQS in a week or two just to be certain ? Any newly laid Varroa would be just about ready for a bashing by then Bit more 'fluffy' than the usual dose of chemicals. There will be more knowledgable people than me along shortly ...

 

[biglongdarren]

i live beside pooh bear and have the ingredients to make up some of hivemakers thymol based varroa treatment, should we do this????if so i can have it made up and ready for her to use tomorrow.
Darren

 

[itma]

Darren, a varroa count would reveal something about the extent of the problem.

Personally, I wouldn't rely on Apiguard/Thymol-sponge vapour treatments at the present temperatures. And I'd be worried about tainting honey before the treatment is finished.

If it is a serious infestation, then drastic actions could be called for.
But if its not so bad, a bit of drone culling might be all that was needed.

If you can find out what the score is, that would be useful.

 

[biglongdarren]

as far as i am aware the varroa problem is very heavy indeed,alot of bees going about with deofrmed wings. and also that pooh bear isnt worried about tainting any honey in the hive, her main concern now is to save the bees.
i have any amount of spare gear to lend her as far a shook swarms and all go, the temps here today was in double figures and we could insulate the hive too if it was to be treated with thymol.
we are both very new to beekeeping and never had to deal with this problem before at this time of year.

 

[Pooh Bear]

Thank you all for your well-thought out responses. I checked the hive today ( & gave them a serious dowsing in icing sugar as well as sprinkling eucalyptus oil, tea tree oil, clove oil & fir oil in). - It was not a pretty sight... I removed one frame that had some drone brood & found 5-10 mites sealed up in some cells. Urrrgh! I'm ready to nuke the feckers....
But have been thinking of moving them into a topbar hive I have from last year - so might do chemical treatment + shook swarm... with a bit of help from Darren...

 

[itma]

Not too sure about those essential oils.
You risk covering up the pheromones that are so important in the well-ordered running of the hive.

Varroa in drone cells. Its not so much how many of them in any cell. (That is more a measure of how long the cell has been capped.) What is important is what proportion of drone cells have mites in them.

Do take a good look at the "Managing Varroa" booklet (linked previously).
Though MAQS is too new to feature (formic does).


I was touring colonies with the Seasonal Bee Inspector today, and one had rather a lot of DWV.
The Inspector suggested treatment with Apistan/Bayvarol.
Now I don't really like those chemical products is that they leave residues in the wax.
However, if you were going to do a shook swarm (putting them on fresh wax), then such a treatment might be a very good preliminary.

A simple shook swarm on its own doesn't deal with all the varroa. Any phoretic (out of the cells) mites will be carried into the new home.
Hence (for varroa) it is usually followed up using a couple of bait combs.
And that wouldn't be possible in a fresh TBH.
Hence my previous suggestion of Apistan/Bayvarol before the shook swarm, but do check that it is having an effect (heavy varroa drop) and thus that your mites are not resistant, before doing the shook swarm. And the take the old wax out of beekeeping, making candles or polish from it.

If you are planning to shook swarm them into the TBH, then chemical treatment before (rather than after) would make a deal of sense.

 

[hallshoney]

I vapiorize routely vaporize through the summer as the cost is low. For a few hives why not try MAQS strips all the large suppliers stock them.

 

[itma]

I vapiorize routely vaporize through the summer as the cost is low. For a few hives why not try MAQS strips all the large suppliers stock them.

It is close to an ideal test for MAQS.

But one major problem is that the OP doesn't have "a few hives". Profile shows just one. So increase the 'risk aversion' factor ...

 

[Mike a]

Shook swarm

IMHO is the best (non chemical) method of removing the most amount of varroa in one hit. If you have a reasonable sized colony and there is a nectar flow on in your area at the time they will draw out most of the frames very quickly, the queen would lay up several frames very quickly and the colony would in time be stronger and healthier as a result as you will of removed all the wax tainted with pesticides and any residues of chemical treatments given to the colony at the same time.

A regional bee inspector said at our association meeting several years ago "If everyone in the country performed a shook swarm on every colony in the UK in Spring over the same weekend varroa numbers would not recover again to warrant needing to use chemical treatments until the following year"

Again IMHO some beekeepers get too hung up on the break in the brood rearing that it puts them off from shook swarming without thinking about the bigger picture and obvious benefits to the colony in the long term.

 

[Into the lions den]

Gloomy answer I know, but anything we have ever seen which is already full of deformed wing workers (and if you look closely it will be more than just wings) and 5 to 10 mites in drone cells indicates the colony may already be beyond the point of no return.

Have you looked in any worker brood? The rate there is critical. If it is in most cells you will find saving the colony a challenge. If it is merely sporadic then you might have a chance. If the colony is very strong then shook swarming is OK, but if it is less than say seven bars of bees, and a significant proportion are already with DWV, it will tumble in strength very fast after shook swarming and prior to first brood hatch. As its your only colony you may feel you have no alternative to giving it a try. Good luck.

 

[Firefly]

Very useful thread; thanks all

OP - please let us know what you decide and what happens - thanks

David