Varroa drop 20 per day

[Vramin]

One of my colonies had a varroa drop of 5000 as a result of treating with MAQS during August. A month after treatment started the drop was down to 1 per day. Fine, I thought.

I put the monitoring board in yesterday, and the drop after 24 hours was 20! The air temperature was between 0 and 6 degrees C, so not much activity, if that makes a difference.

The Beebase calculator estimates a varroa level of 8000. Gulp!

I realise that the average might reduce over a longer period. On the other hand, it might increase!

I am shocked and rather worried for the future of this colony. Obviously, I will apply oxalic acid in a couple of weeks.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

I have an overwintering nuc as insurance in case of a winter loss, and will obviously be able to take more nucs from my other colonies in the spring too, if needed.

Just thought I'd mention this in light of the low/zero varroa counts experienced this year.

 

[VEG]

wow.

 

[pargyle]

Crumbs ... your bees must have the best tasting Haemolymph anywhere ... I reckon your bees must be collecting Varroa from the rest of the country ! Presumably this is just one of your colonies/hives ... how did the others fare ?

Seriously, I think you need to find some cleaner bees next season ... Have you throught about re-queening from a hive that shows less propensity for collecting mites ? I can't think that, after this level of treatment, you would be seeing this level of mites at this time of year.

The only other possibility is that it's just the dead remnants of mites that were killed by your previous treatment that are being cleaned out of cells by the cleaner bees ? Doing a bit of early spring cleaning as the weather has been relatively mild - although 0 to 6 degrees is a bit on the chilly side ?

Other possibility is that it IS phoretic mites being cleaned off as the bees cluster so may not be as high an infestation as the usual formula would suggest ?

OA would seem like a good idea though (and if it's as cold as that there now) and they are clustered, would not do any harm sooner rather than later, if you are going to do OA.

 

[MuswellMetro]

One of my colonies had a varroa drop of 5000 as a result of treating with MAQS during August. A month after treatment started the drop was down to 1 per day. Fine, I thought.

I put the monitoring board in yesterday, and the drop after 24 hours was 20! The air temperature was between 0 and 6 degrees C, so not much activity, if that makes a difference.

The Beebase calculator estimates a varroa level of 8000. Gulp!

I realise that the average might reduce over a longer period. On the other hand, it might increase!

I am shocked and rather worried for the future of this colony. Obviously, I will apply oxalic acid in a couple of weeks.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

I have an overwintering nuc as insurance in case of a winter loss, and will obviously be able to take more nucs from my other colonies in the spring too, if needed.

Just thought I'd mention this in light of the low/zero varroa counts experienced this year.

Saw similar high drop on a beginners hive this autumn, and that has now died

//////////////we still dont know why the varroa load was so high as it was treated august 2012 with two tubs of apiguard and oxalic (£hornes pre-made) in Janaury 2013

what varroa treatment did your high drop hive have in the last year

could try the vet prescribed Apivar (amitraz) strips

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

That is pretty similar to my experience this year, although your numbers are a bit higher. Either I "missed" mites, or picked up a load. There is a difference, in terms of the health of the overwintering bees, but not much either of us can do about it. Either way, these low varroa counts were somewhat misleading in that case.

I felt that I had to knock the mites down hard in any case, and the choice in doing that with OA is with multiple treatments (which folk on here say really means vapourization rather than multiple trickles) or KNOWING they are broodless. I chose my own way of doing that and attracted some comments so not suggesting you do the same.

Or you could hit the big red button marked "Acaricide" I suppose; I chose to avoid that and this seems the wrong time of year to do so with OA in the frame, avoiding all the issues they raise.

<ADD>As the calculator says, drop-based calculations are v unreliable at this time of year. I was dropping about 9 mites a day in November, a sudden surge, and eventually took out 500 with OA, if it helps. Consistent with pargyle's idea.

The only other possibility is that it's just the dead remnants of mites that were killed by your previous treatment that are being cleaned out of cells by the cleaner bees ? Doing a bit of early spring cleaning as the weather has been relatively mild - although 0 to 6 degrees is a bit on the chilly side ?

Other possibility is that it IS phoretic mites being cleaned off as the bees cluster so may not be as high an infestation as the usual formula would suggest ?

</ADD>

 

[enrico]

I have to say that my reaction was 5000.......blimey! But.....that is 5000 dead ones!
With that many dead ones there are probably quite a few live ones left, I don't use oa but in this case I would. I would use MAQS again in late spring if the drop was still significant but hopefully you are getting on top of it. Don't worry, you are doing everything right and there us nothing more you can do so just be patient and sit it out for the winter. You can only be doing good by treating! At least you have enough sense to be testing and treating. Many font and lose hives, you stand more chance than them.....well done
E

 

[alanf]

One of my colonies had a varroa drop of 5000 as a result of treating with MAQS during August. A month after treatment started the drop was down to 1 per day. Fine, I thought.

I put the monitoring board in yesterday, and the drop after 24 hours was 20!...

Is there a possibility that you disturbed some varroa that were lodged in comb perhaps? I'd try two samples of 2 or 3 days, if you get consistent drops of 20/day on both samples that's far more certain than 20 in a single day.

add - I see that's also been raised above. But realistically if the 5000 you got in August were 90% or so that's still 500 in August, 1000 in September, 2000 October, 4000 November - it's possible that they've recovered back to August levels. The difference now is that they're in a fewer brood cells. I'd be looking seriously at destroying any brood and then oxalic dribble, followed by Amitraz, or Apistan depending on your local resistance. Aim to clear 99% or more with successive treatments.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Does anyone have any thoughts

Yes, not surprised at all, considering experience of using formic, and the way some were using it with way too much ventilation, so much lower efficiency.

 

[MuswellMetro]

vramin

I forgot to say

Dont feal bad about having a high drop, it has happened to most of us at some time or other. It defineley happended to me

I think really what it is telling us, is dont go on treating by Rote, you have to second guess the varroa mite and use as many different IPM methods as you can

 

[Jimmys Mum]

I have a hive that was badly infested in late October despite an August Thymol treatment.

If it were my hive, I agree with other posts and I'd check the mite drop over a few more days first to get a clearer picture. A single 24hr drop can be misleading.

I don't know what your weather has been like over the last few weeks ??? but it has been very mild here and I suspect that I still have brooding going on in my hives! If you do have sealed brood in there now then I dont think that an oxalic trickle will be as effective as you clearly need it to be as most of the mites will be in sealed brood. Hopefully you will be able to zap them in a few weeks after some colder weather puts the queen off lay and then perhaps as Enrico says use another treatment again in the late Spring. I am slowly but surely appreciating the importance of IPM in the varroa battle!

I'm now 7 weeks into an 8 week treatment with Apivar and even with these more autumnal temperatures I have still been getting consistent daily drops which have been gradually tailing off - except for this week when I've had a mini spike in drop numbers again - could be a new cycle of brood and their mites emerging or extra housekeeping dislodging already dead mites? Who knows! As long as they keep dying

The biggest drops however were in the first few days of Apivar application in late October when temperatures were higher (13-16 degrees). Although I dont think Apivar is directly temperature dependant, it is a 'contact miticide' so will work better when the bees are actively moving across the strips and not tightly clustered. I would use it again as a late autumn emergency measure although hope not to have to next year

Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

JM

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

There is an issue that worries me about OA in sub-tropical UK. How is Vramin supposed to know when the colony is broodless for OA given what might turn out to be a fair mite load? It seems to me that some of the failed OA treatments we hear about, including the one above, could be accounted for by brood.

 

[farbee]

There is an issue that worries me about OA in sub-tropical UK. How is Vramin supposed to know when the colony is broodless for OA given what might turn out to be a fair mite load? It seems to me that some of the failed OA treatments we hear about, including the one above, could be accounted for by brood.

Have a look.

 

[MuswellMetro]

There is an issue that worries me about OA in sub-tropical UK. How is Vramin supposed to know when the colony is broodless for OA given what might turn out to be a fair mite load? It seems to me that some of the failed OA treatments we hear about, including the one above, could be accounted for by brood.

is it only temperature that affects Bees, i think it includes daylength, sun height, lack of forageable pollen and probably many other things i dont know about but the bees do

 

[alanf]

is it only temperature that affects Bees, i think it includes daylength, sun height, lack of forageable pollen and probably many other things i dont know about but the bees do

I had a peek in a couple of hives this week, it was damp but air temperature 13C and they were flying. No sealed brood, which anecdotally is what others have been finding. But that doesn't mean I'd count on them being broodless to the same schedule next year.

 

[Bob Bee]

I did Oxalic trickle on most hives on 3 sites yesterday. The strongest colony was the only one I checked in any detail and it was broodless. I did it in Mid January last year because there hadn't been a frost before Christmas. I cant find a definite defining factor for broodless-ness in Cornwall (light, temperature, date etc) so am working on a rough 3 weeks after first proper frost personally. However as with most things I suspect there is a complex mixture of triggers that vary from place to place and colony to colony. I will do the sites that didn't get those first frosts at the end of November after Christmas.

 

[dclewis]

I agree with Jimmys mum, the drop count has to be done over nearer a week than a day, the calcualtor stipulates at least 7 days if I remember well. But ideally count and clean the board daily or the dam ants might walk off with the varroa. 1 day's count is almost worthless as you don't get a feel, particularly at this time of year, of whether you are getting brood hatching out or not and the clean out of the immature females. A week gives you at least 50% of the turn over period for sealed brood, if there is any.

 

[Finman]

.
The count is huge. It is odd that the hive is alive any more.

This autumn I had two hives so that varroa destroyed them and when I started to give oxalic acid, there was no bees at all.

Mite destroys the last brood which were aimed to be winter bees. Then summer bees die and the hive is empty. I have told that before.

Yep. Thats happen.

Such is life with varroa. It is better to kill mites in right time
than wait that it has done its dirty job. Counting helps nothing.

When the mite level goes too high, the treatment must be done in time before the hive rear winter bees-
High level you see when you meet mites in drone cells in June. Then you will have troubles in September. And September is then too late.

 

[Finman]

is it only temperature that affects Bees, i think it includes daylength, sun height, lack of forageable pollen and probably many other things i dont know about but the bees do

plus a strain of bees, how well colony reacts on those nature signals.

.

 

[richardbees]

is it only temperature that affects Bees, i think it includes daylength, sun height[/

Doesn't look like we're going to have a 'hard frost' any day soon - so I plan to use the winter solstice / 21 Dec instead and dribble OA on or around Jan 11th.....

 

[Ely]

One of my colonies had a varroa drop of 5000 as a result of treating with MAQS during August. A month after treatment started the drop was down to 1 per day. Fine, I thought.

I put the monitoring board in yesterday, and the drop after 24 hours was 20! The air temperature was between 0 and 6 degrees C, so not much activity, if that makes a difference.

The Beebase calculator estimates a varroa level of 8000. Gulp!

I realise that the average might reduce over a longer period. On the other hand, it might increase!

I am shocked and rather worried for the future of this colony. Obviously, I will apply oxalic acid in a couple of weeks.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

I have an overwintering nuc as insurance in case of a winter loss, and will obviously be able to take more nucs from my other colonies in the spring too, if needed.

Just thought I'd mention this in light of the low/zero varroa counts experienced this year.

Still plenty of foraging time to reinfect themselves after a summer treatment. It is possible they robbed out a varroa ridden colony during autumn and got reinfected that way. Oxalic can only be beneficial