Varroa treatment? (yes or no)

[steve's bees]

Hi fellow beeks,

I am sure I have read some reply's to some threads on here where some people aren't treating for varroa to christmas. If this is so what would the benefits be?

Steve

 

[rae]

There is an argument that if the bees show no sign of varroa, then there is no point in treating them - there may even be an advantage in not treating them as they are not exposed to chemical with out good reason.

I would counter with the experience that even when hives do not show any outward sign of varroa infestation, I have been surprised at the level of mite drop during teatment.

 

[richardbees]

Steve

Not sure what you mean by " people aren't treating for varroa to christmas."

Are you saying they suggest delaying V treatment until then?

 

[TOBY-3652]

I agree mite drop was low on some of my hives. Treated with apiguard and verry suprised had over 5000 of one off my hives in 2 weeks and a couple more have dropped over 2500 so ide say treat

 

[steve's bees]

Hi sorry about typing error I meant til christmas

 

[rink123]

Well I have been treating mine for varroa for a week now , I did not know that thay had the mite Till I look on the draw board lots

 

[zubzub]

I think what you are thinking of is no thymol type treatment now so as to make the most of any late flow and at christmas using oxalic acid treatment when broodless,which I believe has a higher kill rate for mites, but am also in my first year and may not have quite got that right,
perhaps a more experienced beek will advis.

ZZ

 

[steve's bees]

I think what you are thinking of is no thymol type treatment now so as to make the most of any late flow and at christmas using oxalic acid treatment when broodless,which I believe has a higher kill rate for mites, but am also in my first year and may not have quite got that right,
perhaps a more experienced beek will advis.

ZZ

Hi yes this about sums it.

please leave your opinion as this is what the forum is for.

Thanks Steve

 

[Tom Bick]

To me the thymol treatment now is the most important treatment of the year.

The brood is reducing and as a result the varroa is concentrating into cells available and will damage the bees developing in the cells.

It is the bees that are raised now that you want to get you through to next April and if damaged from the varroa will be good to February and then may die in march if not earlier.

So if you can hit the varroa hard now will give you good young healthy winter bees to get you through the winter and get the colony of to a good start in the spring.

 

[Nuc]

I recently purchased Apiguard and treated my 2 hives after being told by an experienced beek about his trial a few years back. He decided to leave treating his bees till xmas as hardly any sign of mites and bees looked strong. Why pay for Apiguard when cheap oxalic at xmas should do the trick ? So thats what he did. At xmas all looked well as he treated his bees but to his suprise there was a large mite drop on treatment. By feb his bees were dead. He thinks the varroa left the bees open to virus and infection. Now he treats all his bees with Apiguard in Sept, then again with oxalic at the end of the year.
I am doing the same and in the first 9 days of Apiguard my strongest hive dropped 340 mites.

 

[VEG]

I am one who treats with apiguard quite late compared to others. I do this as it suits MY local area. We have one hell of a flow on with balsom which will continue for a few weeks yet. My bees still have 7/8 frames of brood at the moment and there is no way I would be able to get all the bees from 5 supers down into the brood box alone to treat. I usually leave it till mid October to treat as then the brood seems to drop a bit and the number of bees drops. As I said above it suits MY area. If I didnt have the balsom my treatment would have been done by now.
As for not treating try the treatment with apiguard and you will probably be quite shocked at how many varroa you find.
I also follow up with oxcalic in Dec/January.

 

[mbc]

why does balsom yield so freely in some areas but not in others ?

 

[oliver90owner]

Tom Bick and Nuc have covered it well.

Any developing bees subjected to varroa mite will already have all been exposed to all sorts of pathogens from the feeding mites. They may have a shortened life span over the winter. Too many mites going into winter will overload the bees in the cluster, too. It all adds up to bad news for the bees.

I, too, consider treatment (just before the winter bees are being brooded) to be far more important than killing them later. I rarely do an oxalic acid treatment during the winter, but I would be very wary of not at least reducing the autumn loading, or being certain the loading was very minimal.

Further, a lot of beeks don't keep attacking the varroa all season, relying on that oxalic acid trickle in winter to see the bees through until autumn. I would rather carefully check for mite drop, drone brood infestation, phoretic mites on bees, etc almost continually throughout the season and certainly would not rely on not checking, doing only one check, or waiting for bees to emerge with deformed wings, etc - and then finding a huge mite drop (like thousands).

RAB

 

[YorkshireBees]

I agree with Tom, even if there are no signs of varroa now the contracting brood nest will concentrate them into the brood cells that the winter bees are developing in!

 

[Eyeman]

Two of my 11 hiving going into winter this year are not being treated with Apiguard, the rest are half way through their treatment.
I would dearly love not to have to use Apiguard for the reasons already stated.
I have monitored mite drop after agpiguard for 2 years now. I have found that if I managed to treat the colony early in the season with icing sugar when they were broodless then the apiguard drop rate was low ie. <50 mites over 4 weeks.
Despite trying to treat all new nucs and swarms with icing sugar during the broodless period my timing isn't good due to lifes other distractions.
I also check the drop rate after winter oxalic acid.
I don't monitor mite drop during the season but do use drone brood culling every month (if I remember) as part of an IPM system.

Alec

 

[Erichalfbee]

All my hives have had two weeks of Apilife Var and the total mite drop has been 10 so I have abandoned further treatment. They are all "new" colonies in that two are caught swarms (mine) and the other the result of a Bailey Change earlier this year. All have this year's queens. I'm still undecided whether to treat at Christmas time. I agree that it's the Autumn mite kill that is the most important.

 

[petersbees]

I thought that I was clear of varroa after putting the board, well greased, in for a week and having not having any mites. Was advised to give them a good dusting with icing sugar and check an hour later. I found 32 mites. I am now treating the hive.

Peter

 

[oliver90owner]

I found 32 mites.

IIRC, that was a month, or so, ago and my quick rough and ready estimate could have been upwards of 500 mites? That may well have doubled in a month, so your decision to treat should not have been that difficult.

RAB

 

[petersbees]

Hi Rab, no question about beginning treatment. Just pointing out that you may think that with no mite drop after a week you may think that you are clear. A quick dusting with icing sugar will give you a better idea as to what is happening.

 

[Eyeman]

A quick dusting with icing sugar will give you a better idea as to what is happening

It would be useful to get some figures on this. I'm using this method rather than counting natural mite drop but have only limited experince over a couple of years.
I have been assuming that approx 80% of the phoretic mites on the bees gets knocked off over 24hrs. The remaining 75% of mites in the brood remain.
So the sample obtained equates to 20% of the total population?
Does this sound right?