Verroa Mite 1st treatment

[Shoot]

I purchased my first Nuke last May, built the colony up and now they seem quite strong. This week my wife and I decided to treat them for Verroa mite.

We have a Beehaus beehive, we had introduced standard nukes to it last year and filled the brood box out with deep national frames.

This week we cut away the drone cells from the underneath of the national frames and we dusted all the bees in Icing sugar.

I cleaned the inspection tray prior to leaving them.

When we revisited two days later we found hundreds of veroa mite on the inspection tray as seen in the photo.

I think what we have done is correct, should we treat them again after a short period or do you think we have taken sufficient precautions at this time?

 

[BeeJayBee]

Is this the first time they've had any anti-varroa treatment since last May? I'm assuming it was 2011 that you got these bees.

 

[VEG]

As you have found out there is a need for varroa treatment. If you monitor and find there is no need then do accordingly. Dont fall for the hype that it will all be ok.

 

[Shoot]

yes

 

[Shoot]

As you have found out there is a need for varroa treatment. If you monitor and find there is no need then do accordingly. Dont fall for the hype that it will all be ok.

I couldn't really tell it needed doing I just carried out the treatment on the basis that I thought it was the right thing to do having seen an increase on mite on the inspection board.

 

[VEG]

yes what?

If you look at treatment by dusting you will find it is more invasive and not worth the effort

I have had a lot to drink but hope I make at least some sense

 

[Arfermo]

If you only used icing sugar, which incidentally is near enough useless as a varroa treatmen, then you have a very severe infestation by the look of it which might well introduce other debilitating problems which could lead to the demise of your colony. The most usual cycle of treatment is thymol (Apiguard and the like) in late August with heavy syrup feeding to take them through to Xmas and then oxalic acid at close to the new year, the latter linked with feeding fondant. Thymol must not be used if you have supers to collect honey for sale. No problem if you leave the honey on as food stores for the bees only or fancy it despite the odour for yourself.
I strongly suggest you download a copy of the most authoritative paper on the subject - the FERA booklet "Managing Varroa" which is in pdf format. If you want a hard copy you are unlikely to get hold of one unless you attand a talk by a FERA rep at a local Beekeeping Association meeting. I assume you are a member of your local BKA? If not, it would be wise to do so as that would be the best source for mentorship and guidance in all honey bee matters.

 

[Hivemaker.]

If that is what you have knocked down with icing sugar,phoretic mites,then they have a heavy infection,80% of the mites will be in the sealed brood,so they need some more serious treatment as soon as possible.

 

[RoofTops]

As others have said, icing sugar best kept for cakes. You have a major varroa problem by the looks of it.

I have been helping someone who is wedded to Top Bar Hives and until recently they were convinced this was the answer to varroa. Recent experience has shown them this is not the case. A painful lesson but hopefully their bees can survive with effective treatment.

Difficult to be precise in your case without knowing more detail but you could try thymol treatments such as Apiguard or Apilife Var. These are normally used later but anything you can do to reduce the mite levels will help. A shook swarm would also be worth considering.

 

[BeeJayBee]

There are two FERA leaflets, on this BeeBase page https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?pageid=167

There is one called "Integrated Pest Management for Varroa Control" https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/downloadDocument.cfm?id=214

one called "Varroa Control: Using Organic Acids" https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/downloadDocument.cfm?id=210

If you want to buy Apivar you can get it from Bridge Vets, in Dumfries http://www.bridgevets.com/bees

I know that some people use icing sugar successfully, but I think it take a fair bit of bee experience to do it effectively and it probably isn't the best thing for your bees at the moment.

 

[Shoot]

I did cut off the comb underneath the standard frames and brought it home for inspection. I found when removing the drone larvae that there was an average of 3 mites per cell, however there was also brood cells and when I disected thes I found little evidence of verroa mite

 

[oliver90owner]

You have a colony in dire risk of collapse, IMO.

If strong enough I would suggest splitting the colony now, putting the queen into a separate hive (a nuc would do at a push). One brood frame and as many bees as you can get in the box. If you can move your beehaus and place the new box on the site, all the better.

Once she is laying on a different frame, remove the frameof brood and replace in the beehaus part and treat with api-lifevar or similar and then do the same with the beehaus after all brood has emerged. Treatment would only need to be a short sharp one as you will only be getting the phoretic mites in each case. All queen cells would need to be knocked down after one week or a virgin may get loose and eventually kill your queen (on re-uniting)

Any stores frames should not be in the part being treated at the time. Reunite the parts afterwards.

The alternative might be to treat the whole colony with the thymol treatment for about a month. Frames of stores should be removed or they will likely be tainted.

Your choice, but act now.

 

[protheroe]

treat them now before you lose the colony.Use proper medication and forget the sugar

 

[Luminos]

Welcome to the forum, Shoot - I lost my colony because of varroa mite - my advice is, take the advice given here - and quickly.

 

[Shoot]

In the abscence of a 2nd hive, could I accomplish a result by shaking them over new frames with new foundation in the existing hive and disposing of all other frames?

 

[protheroe]

yes but what a waste of brood

 

[BeeJayBee]

In the abscence of a 2nd hive, could I accomplish a result by shaking them over new frames with new foundation in the existing hive and disposing of all other frames?

That might be your only way of dealing with this quickly. You will lose brood, but the alternative could be losing the colony.

The number of mites within the drone cells alone suggests a serious problem, let alone the high mite drop in your picture. It's unlikely that you'll see mites within worker cells because they hatch too early to suit the life cycle of the mite.

Have you checked the Fera/Beebase advice? There's a varroa calculator https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/public/BeeDiseases/varroaCalculator.cfm You can count the number of mites on your photograph.

If you need some on-the-spot, hands-on, help you could contact your local association or your Regional Bee Inspector. Bee Inspectors are listed here https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/public/Contacts/contacts.cfm Your RBI (Regional Bee Inspector) or SBIs (Seasonal Bee Inspectors) are at the end of a phone line, and are there to help. They may even do the treatment for you and help you check for DVW etc..

Failing that, there might be somebody on the forum who can come and help you.

 

[VEG]

yes but what a waste of brood

Brood that will be full of varroa

 

[protheroe]

Brood that will be full of varroa

true

 

[VEG]

I dont like the thought of loosing the brood either but in this case maybe the better of 2 evils