Uniting, feeding, and varroa treatment

[melias]

I just harvested my honey yesterday (late because of heather).

I have a colony that has been queenless for approx 6 weeks that I will unite with a stronger colony. My plan was to treat for varroa with Apilife Var.

My question is the following:

Can I unite and start varroa treatment simultaneously? If I do that, then in the upper colony, the mite fall will be onto the newspaper in the early days.

Alternatively, I could treat the colonies and unite afterwards, or perhaps after the first week or two of treatment.

Also, any disadvantages to feeding during treatment with Apilife Var?

 

[beeno]

I just harvested my honey yesterday (late because of heather).

I have a colony that has been queenless for approx 6 weeks that I will unite with a stronger colony. My plan was to treat for varroa with Apilife Var.

My question is the following:

Can I unite and start varroa treatment simultaneously? If I do that, then in the upper colony, the mite fall will be onto the newspaper in the early days.

Alternatively, I could treat the colonies and unite afterwards, or perhaps after the first week or two of treatment.

Also, any disadvantages to feeding during treatment with Apilife Var?

Hi Melias,
This question has come up before and the answer seemed to be unite first to save on treatment - cheaper. I would personally let them make friends for a week before I treated and are you sure you have not got laying workers? Someone wiser will come along in a minute. Good luck.

 

[meidel]

You might want to check the forecast temperature over the next 4-6 weeks to see how effective treatment would still be. Uniting doesn't take very long in my experience - strong colonies have been known to chew through the paper within hours!

 

[peteinwilts]

bearing in mind that a forecast only 4 days ahead is only (statistically) 35-55% accurate, 4 to 6 weeks is optimistic.

Although I have only been a beekeeper for 3 years, my other hobbies have had me following the weather religiously.

For all 3 years, I have started my treatment in the 2nd week of September. All three years has had temperatures on most days above 15 degrees for the duration of the 6 week treatment. Unless needed, I also feed heavily after the treatment as the temperatures are still plenty warm enough.

Naturally if ever I see the weather is planning on turning much colder, I will feed earlier.

I can't really say my varroa count is above average. I have some with no drop count, and others with a couple of hundred during the first treatment... I 'think' that is about normal.
I like to think as there are less brood, there are less mites hidden away.

I am sure some of the early treaters also have good explainations why they treat so early, but all I can say is it works for me...

 

[Finman]

.
You must first kill mites from queenless hive. Otherwise the mites rush into brood and spoil winter bee brood..

Joining the bees does not help much because that old bees die before autun.

You would try that bye a laying queen and let the bees rear some brood frames that it better that join dying bees to normal hive. Then join the brood frames to the hive or even the brood frames and you have 2 proper hives.

 

[melias]

That's interesting, I haven't thought of it that way. So there is no point uniting a queenless hive with another hive in the autumn because there are no bees in the queenless hive that will survive the winter.

 

[meidel]

The only good thing the queenless bees are for is to help with the foraging and consequently looking after brood - as long as there are enough bees foraging, nurse bees will remain nurse bees to nurse brood otherwise nurse bees have to become field bees before their time thus affecting the amount of brood.

If the queenless bees are broodless you could treat with an acid to kill the mites.

 

[meidel]

The other thing to remember is that as long as there's brood in the hive, the temperature in the hive will be between 34-35C (Hooper) ...

 

[MuswellMetro]

The other thing to remember is that as long as there's brood in the hive, the temperature in the hive will be between 34-35C (Hooper) ...

Yes I agree but the 15c minimum temperature for Apiguard relates to the temperature that a colony starts to cluster

As the outside daytime temperature drops then the colony starts to go into cluster and they becomes less activity and therefore they stop working the Apiguard

i assume the clustering temperature also relates to the strain of bee...Has anyone got a link to any papers on the subject of clustering versus daytime outside temperature?

 

[Poly Hive]

We have had night time temps of 9C here in the middle of the East Mids... distinctly chilly now.

15C at 3am? I hae ma doots..... (no chance)

PH

 

[Finman]

.

In this case oxalic acid syrup trickling is very good alternative.
It is not much sensitive to weather.

.
.

 

[alanf]

Yes I agree but the 15c minimum temperature for Apiguard relates to the temperature that a colony starts to cluster

As the outside daytime temperature drops then the colony starts to go into cluster and they becomes less activity and therefore they stop working...

That's how I read it. Much of the documentation, including the official Apiguard FAQ refers to temperature without being clear whether it's max, min or whether any timespan is involved. From what I can gather elsewhere the basic requirement is that outside temperatures of 15C at some point of the day means the bees are active enough to spread the gel.

Around here the October maximum daily temperature averages a shade over 15 from the records of the nearest weather station. Given something close to a normal distribution we expect around half the days to peak over 15. So if we want a month of treatment days, the latest time we could reasonably start is mid September. Actual temperatures are going to vary by location and year but that's the sort of timetable I'm using.

 

[Finman]

of 15C at some point of the day means the bees are active enough to spread the gel. .

it does not that way .

Thymol or formic acid is inside the plastic bag. You make a wound onto it and the stuff gasifies there with the help of temp.

If it is high temp outside, stuff may gasifye so quickly that it hurts larvae and formic acid may kill queens above 26C.



If you make your own formic acid dosage, you may use toalet paper which suck the acid.
You may use a gel form acid which gives gas to the hive with certain speed. Canadians have noticed that system is quite out temp sensitive. Efficacy is about 70% in the
hive whic has brood. Efficacy varies hive by hive.
.