Varroa drop rate with MAQS

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Ringlander

New Bee
***
Joined
Jun 8, 2020
Messages
67
Reaction score
42
Location
Norfolk UK
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
5
Hi , I just put MAQS in each of my three hives for the first time after I had my first visit from the RBI last week. She said everything looked fine in the colonies but that it was time to get the MAQS in as a precaution. The mite drop from the three hives in the first 24 hours was hive 1, 510, hive 2, circa 300 (some fell off the board when I dropped it....) and hive 3 815. All three hives are 14x12's and currently have around 6-7 frames of BIAS. These mite drop numbers sound horrific to me, does anyone have any experience of what would be considered normal? The last physical mite check I did back in July showed aorund 5% of drone brood affected in all three hives (sample of around 50 from each hive) which the BBKA calculator suggested meant no urgent treatment was needed.....
Your thoughts as always appreciated.... Thanks
 
Well yes, it clearly works well! I guess I'm just a bit flumoxed about why they are so badly infested when prevous checks suggested they weren't too bad. Feeling guilty that I haven't been looking after them as well as I should. I was regularly dusting with icing sugar until I saw on here that can kill the open brood, so stopped that a few weeks back. When I did dust the number of mites that dropped was in the region of 30-40 each time, so once again I thought things were under control. I guess all I can do now is keep monitoring the daily drop rate while the MAQS is in and hope the numbers will drop to near zero before the week is up. Anything else I can do now or later?
 
Look on the bright side, that shows that you have not wasted your money and you are treating well in time for them to produce healthy winter bees. The idea is to keep mite levels at a "safe" level below 1,000.
 
30 - 40 from a sugar dusting would have me looking to do something sooner.
 
Well yes, it clearly works well! I guess I'm just a bit flumoxed about why they are so badly infested when prevous checks suggested they weren't too bad. Feeling guilty that I haven't been looking after them as well as I should. I was regularly dusting with icing sugar until I saw on here that can kill the open brood, so stopped that a few weeks back. When I did dust the number of mites that dropped was in the region of 30-40 each time, so once again I thought things were under control. I guess all I can do now is keep monitoring the daily drop rate while the MAQS is in and hope the numbers will drop to near zero before the week is up. Anything else I can do now or later?
You can still dust but just do it in a controlled manner with a sugar roll.
If I had done an accelerated drop ( I use OAV) but you used icing sugar my threshold for treating would have been 10. Your 40 mites would indicate 200 in the colony which would be at critical level in 3 months
 
Well yes, it clearly works well! I guess I'm just a bit flumoxed about why they are so badly infested when prevous checks suggested they weren't too bad.
Checking the inspection board just gives you an indication of mites dropping off daily due to natural mortality. when you chuck any treatment on, it kills them all not just the old timers, in that case the varroa calculator is not worth a jot.
 
Good advice from the bee inspector (Regina?). It's difficult to know exactly how many parasites there are in the hive as you have discovered with alarm and the proportion increases at this time of year as bee numbers drop and varroa numbers continue their rise so the danger gets worse. The FERA guide is just that - and often inaccurate. Unless you are actively trying to go treatment free and understand the consequences, then just treat. Simples.
 
Thanks for the advice, much appreciated. Yes, the RBI was Regina, she certainly knows her stuff.... The latest 24 hour drops are encouraging, Hive 1 118, hive 2, 378 and hive 3 185. Hives 1 and 3 seem to be similar, both down to 23% of the first days drop, while hive two seems to be steadier. It will be interesting to see how the drop rates change as the days pass.

Thanks once again.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top