Varroa advice.

[Matt77]

Afternoon everyone, I transferred the colony into a poly nuc & added a half tray of Apiguard yesterday. Just been down to check on them & they are definatly agitated & are removing brood. Lots of 'body parts' & whole bodies. Is this a normal reaction?

The Apiguard FAQS say if brood removal is seen to remove the treatment. I've left it on but it's a bit of a shock to see them ripping brood to bits.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Afternoon everyone, I transferred the colony into a poly nuc & added a half tray of Apiguard yesterday. Just been down to check on them & they are definatly agitated & are removing brood. Lots of 'body parts' & whole bodies. Is this a normal reaction?

The Apiguard FAQS say if brood removal is seen to remove the treatment. I've left it on but it's a bit of a shock to see them ripping brood to bits.

I would of used a half dose of Apilif-var for a nuc, in fact i do, but with my own version of that treatment, and never have any problems with bees ripping out brood, but very effective at killing mites.

 

[Matt77]

Not sure what to do, take the treatment out or persevere.

 

[itma]

Is the nuc sitting on the ground? A little airspace will help ventilate the nuc a little better. (Normally for Apiguard, you want the box sealed up as well as possible ...)
Putting the nuc up on a couple of blocks for a couple of days might help.

Your report certainly suggests that it isn't really too cold for Apiguard!
If the bees were agitated in their new box, they'd have been generating more heat than usual.

How exactly did you apply the Apiguard?
If, as I suggested, you only half-opened your pack, you could just roll closed the lid a bit, to expose less of the stuff to the bees immediate attention.

The bees will try and drag bits of Apiguard out of the hive ... normally they aren't very successful.

 

[Matt77]

The nuc is on the original hive stand & as you probably know the nuc has a mesh floor.

I removed half of the contents of the tray before I put it in the nuc on top of the frames, they have removed roughly a third of the contents of the tray. Mite drop in the 24ish hours was about 100.

I very nearly took the tray out but in my befuddled mind decided a (hopefully) temporary loss of brood is preferable to the mites.