Treatment Free

[Speybee]

The HKF colony came to me as a swarm in April. The OMF colony came to me as an overwintered colony in May. This different start in life makes me question the accuracy of any comparisons.

Controlled experiment comes to mind

For next season.
Suppose I have a queen bee with 6 frames brood (White dot 2021) in a hive with a Happy Bee floor in the same apiary ( same forage, same climate), no chemical or icing sugar varroa treatments.
However, after several months, I have No significant mite count. Why not? Well...it turns out I had no chemical treatment for varroa. So, I hypothesize that mite drop was less, due to the presence of a Happy Bee floor.

To test my hypothesis, I do a controlled experiment.
In this experiment, I set up two identical hives

Both contain a queen bee ( white dot 2021) a proven layer, and both are placed in the same apiary ( same forage, same climate).
In fact, there is only one thing that I do differently to the two hives.
One hive has a Happy bee floor.
The other hive does not have a Happy bee floor.

After a month, one hive has a significant mite count, while the other hive does not have a significant mite count.
It looks like the Happy Bee floor hypothesis is probably correct!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Mesh floors were originally called varroa floors - the intention was that varroa would drop through and be unable to regain access ... about as much use in this respect as dusting bees with icing sugar -probably less ! I rather feel that the happy floor may be in the same wishful category ... at £52 it is a lot of money and I don't see a lot of evidence that it really works.

 

[fiat500bee]

It seems that people are saying that verroa mites just don't fall or get groomed off bees ver often in the natural course of events; so verroa counts are a completely pointless, inaccurate way to monitor the population density. Is that the consensus of opinion?

 

[Erichalfbee]

It seems that people are saying that verroa mites just don't fall or get groomed off bees ver often in the natural course of events; so verroa counts are a completely pointless, inaccurate way to monitor the population density. Is that the consensus of opinion?

Certainly from me as far as natural drop is concerned.
You can dislodge feeding mites with a fast acting miticide such as icing sugar or OAV
Watch this its an eye opener

 

[pargyle]

It seems that people are saying that verroa mites just don't fall or get groomed off bees ver often in the natural course of events; so verroa counts are a completely pointless, inaccurate way to monitor the population density. Is that the consensus of opinion?

No ... mites die, some are groomed off by bees (I occasionally see mites on the board that have bits bitten off them) and some possibly do just fall off. So - it's an indication - the more mites you find in the debris the more likelihood there is an infestation. The BBKA formulas for estimating mite levels are notoriously inaccurate - you can have a colony that shows no mite drop at all and yet is so infested that it is in imminent danger of collapse - another colony with a high mite fall on the board may be high level groomers or the conditions in the hive are affecting the life and survival rates of varroa in the colony and you have a low level infestation.

It's not a waste of time or pointless - it's an indicator and if you see large numbers of mites dropping then you really need to do a sugar roll on 200 or so bees as that will give you an accurate (or at least more accurate) idea of the infestation levels.

I spent a lot of time counting mites in the early days of my beekeeping (keeping daily records and recording conditions in the hive) - sugar rolls if the mite counts increased. I found that there was only marginal correlelation between the figures the two gave but ... when there was increased mite fall on the board there was usually an increase in measured mite levels from a sugar roll.

I still do it ... but not on a daily basis .. I know my bees well enough to know that they are OK and i do complete an occasional sugar roll as a matter of course and these normally show a very low mite count - although I've seen the occasional spike - but then it goes back down. After I take my supers off this week I will do a sugar roll on all the colonies .. now is the time to worry about varroa - going into winter.

 

[Speybee]

If I cant persuade Mr Speybee to build one, I will try and ask for one from Santa.
I really would like to contrast and compare use of Happy bee floor, as I have in the past used Apivar bought from a vet in Glasgow and posted up, but I’ve also used the icing sugar method to promote hygiene.
Another thing I do, is to change out the comb as soon as it’s dark, never mind black comb and have low mite drop.
But then I also requeen regularly to stop having crabbit bees which I won’t tolerate.

 

[Speybee]

It seems that people are saying that verroa mites just don't fall or get groomed off bees ver often in the natural course of events; so verroa counts are a completely pointless, inaccurate way to monitor the population density. Is that the consensus of opinion?

So how do they fall off then?
I also use an IPM ( integrated pest management) shallow frame to reduce varroa.
I don’t want to tell my granny how to suck eggs ( if you know the following info already just ignore me)
You let the bees make their own extra comb and this usually has drone brood on it which the mite is attracted to.
At an inspection you simply swipe off the extra comb containing the drone brood into a waste bucket and stick the frame back into the deep brood nest.
I’ve been using this too.

 

[Speybee]

No ... mites die, some are groomed off by bees (I occasionally see mites on the board that have bits bitten off them) and some possibly do just fall off. So - it's an indication - the more mites you find in the debris the more likelihood there is an infestation. The BBKA formulas for estimating mite levels are notoriously inaccurate - you can have a colony that shows no mite drop at all and yet is so infested that it is in imminent danger of collapse - another colony with a high mite fall on the board may be high level groomers or the conditions in the hive are affecting the life and survival rates of varroa in the colony and you have a low level infestation.

It's not a waste of time or pointless - it's an indicator and if you see large numbers of mites dropping then you really need to do a sugar roll on 200 or so bees as that will give you an accurate (or at least more accurate) idea of the infestation levels.

I spent a lot of time counting mites in the early days of my beekeeping (keeping daily records and recording conditions in the hive) - sugar rolls if the mite counts increased. I found that there was only marginal correlelation between the figures the two gave but ... when there was increased mite fall on the board there was usually an increase in measured mite levels from a sugar roll.

I still do it ... but not on a daily basis .. I know my bees well enough to know that they are OK and i do complete an occasional sugar roll as a matter of course and these normally show a very low mite count - although I've seen the occasional spike - but then it goes back down. After I take my supers off this week I will do a sugar roll on all the colonies .. now is the time to worry about varroa - going into winter.

What do you mean by a ‘sugar roll’?

 

[Swarm]

Killing drones is such an antiquated approach.

 

[pargyle]

What do you mean by a ‘sugar roll’?

Right .... it's basically coating a cupfull of bees in icing sugar which makes the phoetic mites fall off - you then let the bees go and count the mites remaining. The ratio of mites found to the number of bees in your sample gives a good idea of how infested your colony is. I used to use a jam jar with a mesh lid but I've recently invested in one of these which makes life a lot simpler.

https://www.abelo.co.uk/shop/new/varroa-tester-3in1/
and there is a good video on how to use it here:

 

[pargyle]

Killing drones is such an antiquated approach.

I agree ... bees make drones because they want them ... culling them is very antisocial ...

 

[Speybee]

Killing drones is such an antiquated approach.

I’m an old fashioned gal

 

[Speybee]

I agree ... bees make drones because they want them ... culling them is very antisocial ...

I know that males of any species make the world go round ( most of the time) but sometimes they have to take a hit.
Soz boys!

 

[Speybee]

Right .... it's basically coating a cupfull of bees in icing sugar which makes the phoetic mites fall off - you then let the bees go and count the mites remaining. The ratio of mites found to the number of bees in your sample gives a good idea of how infested your colony is. I used to use a jam jar with a mesh lid but I've recently invested in one of these which makes life a lot simpler.

https://www.abelo.co.uk/shop/new/varroa-tester-3in1/
and there is a good video on how to use it here:

Jings!.....I’m speechless. But impressed.
I’m on a steep learning curve today as I am dragged kicking and screaming into the 21 century.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Killing drones is such an antiquated approach.

I agree ... bees make drones because they want them ... culling them is very antisocial ...

and serves no purpose - just another favourite of the dinosaurs and sandal wearers

I know that males of any species make the world go round ( most of the time) but sometimes they have to take a hit.

But not for no reason - drone culling has very little impact on varroa numbers however, what it does have detrimental impact is reducing the drone population making it harder to get successful queen matings, also narrowing the gene pool.

 

[fiat500bee]

Watch this its an eye opener

It's a big watch but very entertaining considering it's such a dry subject. Dr. Ramsey really gets home the message that these creatures are extremely damaging to bees and it's enlightening to find out exactly how.

It's interesting that he says a brood break could result in an even bigger loading of varroa on the nurse bees and that among the other functions which are severely impaired by the damage to the bees' "fat-body" is their ability to process harmful compounds; could that include treatment chemicals?

It seems that once the bees are carrying a heavy load of varroa, much damage may already have been done and their ability to fly long distances and generate heat in the cluster could be affected. So maybe a big "drop" after treatment shouldn't be reacted to with a sigh of relief of a job done well?

 

[Speybee]

and serves no purpose - just another favourite of the dinosaurs and sandal wearers

But not for no reason - drone culling has very little impact on varroa numbers however, what it does have detrimental impact is reducing the drone population making it harder to get successful queen matings, also narrowing the gene pool.

Food for thought, food for thought.... (If I wore sandals up here, I’d get frostbite)
The gene pool is too true and interesting, seeing I buy in my mated queens and got flak from some for polluting their bee stock!

 

[Madge]

... and there is a good video on how to use it here ...

An all singing all dancing sugar role. Here’s another (home-made version):

 

[Murox]

Food for thought, food for thought.... (If I wore sandals up here, I’d get frostbite)
The gene pool is too true and interesting, seeing I buy in my mated queens and got flak from some for polluting their bee stock!

Perhaps you bought the wrong kind of bees - not theirs but someone else's
Nothing intrinsically wrong with buying in good stock, nor of producing your own either. I do both now and always did in the past. Nowadays there is a far greater and better range/choice of good stock available to all, so I take advantage of that fact when I need new stock for whatever reason.

 

[Swarm]

and serves no purpose - just another favourite of the dinosaurs and sandal wearers

But not for no reason - drone culling has very little impact on varroa numbers however, what it does have detrimental impact is reducing the drone population making it harder to get successful queen matings, also narrowing the gene pool.

Silly idea altogether but I suppose one that is easily dismissed when replacing queens on a regular basis. Drones? So easily overlooked as unimportant, we want more worker brood don't we? Drones don't make honey. Three extra days in a cell, varroa favour them, right let's use them as bait.
Good colonies now, mind. Bees to be proud of so rather than using these genes, they are culled? A couple of open matings later and the beekeeper is replacing queens because of poor temperament.
If you have gorgeous bees they have gorgeous drones so put in a frame or two of drone foundation and encourage them.