varroa

[Normanbeeman]

Cutting a long story short, I had 2 supers with a trapped virgin queen, above the queen excluder, in the brood box I had a marked, mated queen, she was laying brood normally. The virgin queen was laying only drone brood in the supers, naturally the drones couldn't get out through the excluder and were probably a varroa factory. I shook all bees out of the supers and left the supers isolated without bees of any sort. The capped drone brood have been removed now this leaves only varroa mite and honey. Does anyone know how long varroa mite can survive without bees or larva to feed off so I can return the supers onto the hive. Thanks in advance.

 

[Erichalfbee]

If there are no bees and no brood there are no varroa.

 

[BeeGees]

Cutting a long story short, I had 2 supers with a trapped virgin queen, above the queen excluder, in the brood box I had a marked, mated queen, she was laying brood normally. The virgin queen was laying only drone brood in the supers, naturally the drones couldn't get out through the excluder and were probably a varroa factory. I shook all bees out of the supers and left the supers isolated without bees of any sort. The capped drone brood have been removed now this leaves only varroa mite and honey. Does anyone know how long varroa mite can survive without bees or larva to feed off so I can return the supers onto the hive. Thanks in advance.

5/6 weeks if i recall correct.

 

[Erichalfbee]

5/6 weeks if i recall correct.

So where do they live?

 

[pargyle]

So where do they live?

And what do they eat ?

 

[pargyle]

Cutting a long story short, I had 2 supers with a trapped virgin queen, above the queen excluder, in the brood box I had a marked, mated queen, she was laying brood normally. The virgin queen was laying only drone brood in the supers, naturally the drones couldn't get out through the excluder and were probably a varroa factory. I shook all bees out of the supers and left the supers isolated without bees of any sort. The capped drone brood have been removed now this leaves only varroa mite and honey. Does anyone know how long varroa mite can survive without bees or larva to feed off so I can return the supers onto the hive. Thanks in advance.

There's also a bit of a flaw here as well ..

How did you trap a virgin queen above the queen excluder and how long was she trapped for ... ?

A virgin can take up to 26 days from emergin to mate - after that she may turn drone layer.

The short story leaves a lot of unanswered questions ... from egg to emerged drone is 24 days ... so if your virgin started laying unfertilised eggs which have emerged ... let's be conservative at 18 days after emerging .. that's 6 weeks in total ... What's the long story ? Not being critical - just curious.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

And what do they eat ?

Cake

 

[Normanbeeman]

There's also a bit of a flaw here as well ..

How did you trap a virgin queen above the queen excluder and how long was she trapped for ... ?

A virgin can take up to 26 days from emergin to mate - after that she may turn drone layer.

The short story leaves a lot of unanswered questions ... from egg to emerged drone is 24 days ... so if your virgin started laying unfertilised eggs which have emerged ... let's be conservative at 18 days after emerging .. that's 6 weeks in total ... What's the long story ? Not being critical - just curious.

Hi, On inspections I, like most I fancy, lifted the supers off and concentrated on the brood box. Over the winter the QE was removed and replaced end of April. How the queen ended up in the supers I have no idea, maybe she was small enough after emerging to get through the QE and swelled afterwards or maybe she got into the supers before end of April. Maybe the hive had swarmed early. However I noticed no brood, or eggs, on inspections of the brood box, nor a queen obviously. Conclusion there was no queen so I bought one and she started laying (below the queen excluder) normally. It wasn't until after our early spring nectar flow that I started to look more closely at the super frames, for capped honey, that I noticed heavy capped drone brood hence my conclusion that somehow I had a trapped virgin queen (there was only one egg per cell) so not a laying worker. However having divested the supers of bees, drones and workers and removed capped drone cells, there had to have been a lot of varroa in the supers and hence my question of when will the varroa be dead and I can safely return the supers to the hive.

 

[pargyle]

It's all a learning curve isn't it ? I can see why you made the assumtions you did .. it is, of course, possible that they superceded, prior you putting the Queen excluder on and the resultant virgin got trapped above the queen excluder. Perhaps seeking the warmth at the top of the hive ? (Two supers on prior to April is a lot to ask of a colony).

Your theory about varroa being left in the supers doesn't fly unfortunately, whilst varroa do prefer drone cells for reproduction the varroa that survive (not all eggs laid in the cells reach maturity) emerge when the drone cell is uncapped - either by a drone that has survived being parasitised or when the workers uncap it and remove the drone cadaver. Any mites that escaped would then be in the phoretic stage and attached to (in all probability) nurse bees in the brood box.

When you uncapped the drone cells did you see any varroa on the drone larvae ? Drone cell uncapping and inspection of the infestation of the drone larvae is a good indication of whether there is a serious mite problem in the colony.

If you have worries about varroa I would not be directing attention to the supers you have taken off .. there won't be live mites in there ... I would be checking the colony with a sugar roll to see if there is a problem.

There is an interesting paper here which will give you more insight into the life and times of the varroa mites ..

https://bee-health.extension.org/varroa-mite-reproductive-biology/

 

[Normanbeeman]

Thanks for the info pargyle, I did see one varroa mite whilst uncapping the drone brood but not as many as I would have thought. I will do a varroa check on the brood box and treat with MAQS if a high(ish) count is seen. I will then return the supers to the hive for the workers to clean up. thanks

 

[pargyle]

Thanks for the info pargyle, I did see one varroa mite whilst uncapping the drone brood but not as many as I would have thought. I will do a varroa check on the brood box and treat with MAQS if a high(ish) count is seen. I will then return the supers to the hive for the workers to clean up. thanks

If you just put one on you might get a few frames of honey in it - plenty left in the season yet. If you put both on you may find it's a bit too miuch space above the brood box for them to bother with and you could end up with a column up through the middle. You could, of course, put one super on the top and one under the brood box .. they could, then, transfer any stores from the one underneath up.

What I would do is put any frames containing honey in a super on top of the hive and see what they do with them. Fork out any remaining capped drone brood to save them a bit of work. Store the remaining frames (well sealed from wax moth) after forking out any drone remnants. If they fill frames in the super you leave on the hive you can pull those out and swap them for your stored empty ones.

A few options to think about. No doubt others will have some different ideas ..

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thanks for the info pargyle, I did see one varroa mite whilst uncapping the drone brood but not as many as I would have thought. I will do a varroa check on the brood box and treat with MAQS if a high(ish) count is seen. I will then return the supers to the hive for the workers to clean up. thanks

If you are going to use MAQS don’t forget to leave one super on.

 

[Normanbeeman]

Thanks for your help and advice guys