Varroa Counting

[Firefly]

So, as you see, I have Varroa

Can anyone offer a bit of been-there-done-that advice, please

From 7 days of fall I found 70-80 of these - which is a bit scary

My feeling is that these are small (smaller than the few that I have seen earlier in the season)

To find that many on the drop tray, I had to spend 30-45 minutes _with a magnifying glass_ meticulously poking about with tweezers in wax debris, bee legs, fallen pollen and general gunk. Fine for me with only 2 hives. I cannot really believe that those of you with 20-2000 do this! Are the thresholds really based on a search this scrupulous? If I had just cast my eye over the tray and no more, I would have said "yeah, 20 or so, no problem" [The above photo is not the fall tray from the hive - it is a clean one that I moved them on to as I found them!!]

So, what to do? The hive has 2 almost full supers with cells only partly capped in one of them. Is it sufficient to wait until end Aug, take those off and then treat with Thymol, or do I press the panic button now? If so, what other worthwhile action could I take in the ~4 weeks between now and then?

Many thanks - I'm sure there will only be one clear answer

David

 

[CB008]

So, as you see, I have Varroa

Can anyone offer a bit of been-there-done-that advice, please

From 7 days of fall I found 70-80 of these - which is a bit scary

My feeling is that these are small (smaller than the few that I have seen earlier in the season)

To find that many on the drop tray, I had to spend 30-45 minutes _with a magnifying glass_ meticulously poking about with tweezers in wax debris, bee legs, fallen pollen and general gunk. Fine for me with only 2 hives. I cannot really believe that those of you with 20-2000 do this! Are the thresholds really based on a search this scrupulous? If I had just cast my eye over the tray and no more, I would have said "yeah, 20 or so, no problem" [The above photo is not the fall tray from the hive - it is a clean one that I moved them on to as I found them!!]

So, what to do? The hive has 2 almost full supers with cells only partly capped in one of them. Is it sufficient to wait until end Aug, take those off and then treat with Thymol, or do I press the panic button now? If so, what other worthwhile action could I take in the ~4 weeks between now and then?

Many thanks - I'm sure there will only be one clear answer

David

I am no expert but at this stage last year I was getting that many drop in a day and I still managed to get 2 supers off. I got by by using hiveclean every few days to keep them down until I could get the supers off and the Api on.The question may be whether you have deformed wing virus etc as a result of the varroa infestation. Have you looked closely for that ?

 

[Firefly]

Saw a few (well precisely 2) with deformities a few weeks ago and did the icing sugar job. Nothing recently

 

[CB008]

I found that the icing sugar did not work for me whilst Hiveclean did get rid of a lot of mites. If you had dwv a few weeks ago then it is unlikely to have gone away - it is more than likely worse. I managed to get through to August week 2 when I took off the supers and put on the Api. The drop was so great after the normal Api treatment that I had to repeat the whole course again. Anyway, at Christmas I drenched them with Oxalic acid and have hardly seen a single varroa in months this year. There is nothing on teh tray day after day. Please accept that I am still very much an amateur in beekeeping and there are far more experienced people than me but my advice would be that you must do something about your problem and for me repeated Hiveclean provided enough time to get some honey off and get them on Api.

 

[Gardenbees]

Even if you've got a lot of hives it doesn't hurt to spend some time checking - if not precisely, then at least to have a quick look. You can spot the little shiny monsters fairly well after practice and get an impression of the situation. The thing is, colonies can vary a lot.

I had one colony that had a high mite count last time I checked: one mite in three days in June, then it surprised me with 20 a month later. My other two colonies had zero and two. I think what happened is simply that the smaller colony got badly robbed during late June/July, possibly picked up some extra unwanted passengers as a result, and by the time a batch of drone brood had hatched prior to the inspection the little monsters were starting to get a hold. It's a small colony so I've removed sealed drone brood, and decided to treat with Apilife Var through August (we have a great H. balsam supply nearby so September is a good month for them to recover in). I won't treat the one with no varroa unless any show up between now and autumn feeding; the others will get A-Var treatment in September.

If the varroa-free colony (which has had no sign of them all year) continues to look good, I shall probably use it for raising one or two new queens next year. That's assuming that they actually haven't got mites (not just that they are bad at dislodging them, which I suppose is always a possibility).

There are always possible health problems I know, but it's hard not to think wistfully about the uncomplicated olden days when the varroa nuisance wasn't around