having been told it has been treated
5 mites when you got it were enough for over 300 now.
5 mites when you got it were enough for over 300 now.
For OA at under 5p a treat, and relatively benign, and one man able to treat 300 a day by not wasting time sorting them out, we just do all. I know its a different mindset and agenda, but its the MID season treatment we regard as the optional extra, and give everything oxalic in winter. A lot of our issues with varroa declined sharply when we changed over to a single standard 'do every colony' winter trickle, and keep the proprietry treatments for summer emergencies ( which are very few and probably colonies that had brood at OA time).
We used to do a (small) random sample of counts, but once it got to the point that it was not telling us anything we did not already know we stopped bothering.
The mites are there, and going into spring with as few as possible is palinly the best. Even if only 10 mites in the hive I would rather bump the bulk of them off.
..Out of interest ITLD, three questions for you;
1) In your experience does regular annual prophylactic treatment suppress/delay infestation rates on otherwise varroa 'light/free' colonies or do varroa populations naturally rebound very quickly? I ask only I wonder if there's an argument for a 'country' wide co-ordinated propylactic 'eradication' program (bit like mass vaccination programmes).
When varroa first came into this country one of the big things recommended to keep the pest under better control was local co-ordinated treatment times. I think this fell apart because of a few factors, mostly the fact that beekeepers are as easy to co-ordinate as cats are to herd. Only needs a few refuseniks who will not treat, or some 'natural' beeks in the area (a mor erecent development) and your efforts at co-ordinated treatment are frustrated by re-infestation (covered by others in other threads). Good idea in priciple, but in practice just does not work, not because it couldnt work, but because human factors will prevent it. Also, apart from the mid winter oxalic window, there is no common window for treatments in the UK, so it would have to be done regionally, taking into account the climate and floral patterns for the area. Actual eradication is also not possible. There are no treatments that kill 100% of the mites, bar petrol and matches.
2) Apart from bee hives are there any other 'sanctuaries' that varroa might be found in that would escape such a concerted eradication programme?
Not in significant numbers apart from the feral bee colonies. I remember watching one of our bee inspectors up a tree with an arm deep in a hole sticking a sticky sheet uder a feral and putting Bayvarol strips into the free hanging colony. They had just as many varroa as our managed colonies 100 metres away. So, where there are ferals there is a fair likelihood that they are infested and can re-infest colonies cleared out of most of their varroa by the beekeeper. I have heard of varroa in the nests of other bees too, but as these are seasonal the mites tend to fade away with the colony.
3) Have you seen a corresponding decline in hive deaths as a consequence of your prophylactic treatments viz viral pathogens?
Not really clear to be honest.
Our years of heavy varroa casualties were relatively early in the process when collapse of colonies rather sneaked up on us, and later as the pyrethroids became ineffective. Have not seen very big varroa linked issues for some seasons now. When it DID happen it was not generally a winter loss situation, more one that overtook the colony once brood rearing started to decline in late summer. DWV was undoubtedly the most obvious symptom, and I remember once, arriving in a location on the heather to think it had been raining, and the grass and the heather were glistening in the sunlight, only to realise we were seeing a massive varroa collapse going on and the glistening was the flightless bees walking all over the place after being evicted from the hives by the bees that were not affected. Nasty thing to see. Strangely enough, by removing the honey, treating immediately (it was Apistan then), returning the bees to their lowland location, then trickle feeding for two months, we saved over 80% of the colonies, even though they had collapsed from two or more full deeps down to 3 bars of bees.
The last couple of years it has been bad weather at mating time, and a lack of young bees in winter, that have been the worst things. Every year is different and it is a long term job to pick out specifics unless the effect of one factor is gross.either on the up or downside. All we can say about oxalic is that if we use it we see very few mites the following spring, and the need for far more expensive or labour intensive methods is largely eliminated. The level of varroa associated losses, after a correctly done oxalic programme, is sharply down. if we were not treating we would have very heavy losses. Any groups missed out (has happened for reasons of indifferent staff memory) show what would have happened, and its not pretty.
Thanks
When varroa first came into this country one of the big things recommended to keep the pest under better control was local co-ordinated treatment times. I think this fell apart because of a few factors, mostly the fact that beekeepers are as easy to co-ordinate as cats are to herd. Only needs a few refuseniks who will not treat, or some 'natural' beeks in the area (a mor erecent development) and your efforts at co-ordinated treatment are frustrated by re-infestation (covered by others in other threads). Good idea in priciple, but in practice just does not work, not because it couldnt work, but because human factors will prevent it. Also, apart from the mid winter oxalic window, there is no common window for treatments in the UK, so it would have to be done regionally, taking into account the climate and floral patterns for the area. Actual eradication is also not possible. There are no treatments that kill 100% of the mites, bar petrol and matches.
..
I'm surprised that you so readily discount the possibility of an eradication programme. It's generally accepted that no mass vaccination programme will be 100%. However, if the desired thresh hold is achieved then this has the beneficial effect of suppressing spread through reduced exposure. I wouldn't have the foggiest idea what that thresh hold might be for varroa but if co-ordinated annually then I bet it would drastically curb varroa nationally.
I'm surprised that you so readily discount the possibility of an eradication programme.
The history of this goes all the way back to the arrival of varroa in almost every territory it meets. Your response is fairly well reasoned and was, with variations, the almost universal first line of attack considered in most areas meeting the first wav of varroa. Eradication that is.
For actual eradication of varroa in an area sadly you need to totally wipe out the entire honeybee population, leave it for up to a season with an army of inspectors going all over the land looking at flowering plants seeking signs of honeybee activity, and where found leave highly attractive poisoned baits around for the remnant bees to take from to cause death of the colonies, both feral and concealed, that had not been found by normal methods. These were the proposed methods in a number of places, and is well documented as the system under consideration in New Zealand at first finding.
Several beekeeping bodies have pressed for such a solution to be implemented, and then once proven there were no bees left they can be re-introduced as packages from clean areas.
Problems that preclude this are:-
The cure is worse than the complaint.
The loss of pollination of crops (in NZ they thought it would be for at least 3 years).
Beekeeper activity (they love their bees and a good number would hide rather than destroy) consisting of:-
a. moving bees away from areas where they anticipate an eradication might be implemeted (taking pioneer mite with them)
b. refusing to co-operate, and refusing to treat
The unlikelihood of actually catching all.
The fact that varroa is invariably a couple of years ahead of the wave of diagnoses at first invasion, and that the leaps ahead as yet unknown can be very large single jumps.
If you dont get it all then recurrence at the pre eradication levels is very fast.
In more recent cases such as NZ, the difficulty of finding adequate guaranteed clear stock to repopulate.
Total or near total loss of local gene pool.
The second string, co-ordinated treatment, would have to be enforced by statute as you get all sorts of reasons why it is not done.
Not everyone is around in the agreed date span.
The beekeeper does not believe (sometimes right but often wrong) he has varroa at all.
Refusal to put 'chemicals' in the hive.
Plain old cussedness, not going to be told by ANYONE what to do with their bees.
Isolation of the beekeeper. (Many get no info from anyone as they are non members and read nothing.)
Different management means different windows.
Its a complex issue, has been considered in depth before, and eventually abandoned as unworkeable or more damaging than the pest. Its not ME who has simply ruled it out 'so easily'. far greater minds than my own have wrestled with this in the past.
Over regulation can be an issue too. Its a long time back now but we have a visited from a large grouo of Bavarian beekepers here and the issue of varroa and the countermeasures to it were discussed at length. A vast number of beekeepers went out of beekeeping, both amateur and professional, during the first wave. Oddly only about a third of them blamed varroa itslef. the rest blamed the regulations surrounding varroa control as the reason, especally standtill orders, leaving gheir bees rooted to spots whose short window of bounty was long past.
Like i said......very complex.
My reading of Karol's question was that he hasn't grasped the reality of Varroa treatments. The best treatments are unlikely to kill more than 98% of the mites in a colony, so clearing even one colony of mites is unlikely. In that light his question was naive: you can't eradicate Varroa even in one colony without the petrol and matches approach. It will be back to cause problems, usually within a year, and that is without reinfestation from other colonies in the neighbourhood.
It might, but would have to be a drastic reduction in background and that would need to be repeated at least annually. There is no immunisation herd effect beyond the limited period of treatment, you're only resetting the clock before they breed again....However, any concerted action which reduces the back ground population of varroa must presumably reduce the incidence or rate of re-infestation...
The 2000 mite dropper was a swarm i got on the 28th of may built up realy well i got 50lb of balsom honey off it. Had 3 supers on it in july. When i fetched it home i had to put it on double brood and it is still a big colonie.it had 1 packet of apiguard and only dropped 279 mites so i didnt give it the second one {maybe i should of] this is only my 3rd year so still learning.. The colonies that dropped between 3000 and 6000 mites with apiguard have dropped between 60 and 200 with oxalic. So these probably didnt want doing..next year i will moniter more for the mites and probably not do the ones with oxalic that drop lots with apiguard as i say im still learning
It might, but would have to be a drastic reduction in background and that would need to be repeated at least annually. There is no immunisation herd effect beyond the limited period of treatment, you're only resetting the clock before they breed again.
Seen this one? http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21864
The finding is that infested hives will distribute 200 or so mites in a couple of autumn months to a number of 'clean' hives within 1.5km. At suburban density that's 4 or 5 registered apiaries in range. But +25% is the NBU estimate of unregistered apiaries to add. There are a number who will refuse to treat (registered or not), plus ferals, plus neglected because of illness or whatever cause. There is some effort to co-ordinate where associations have apiaries, but the effect is probably more of education and prompting to treat for the benefit of those individuals than actual reduction in the number of mites likely to be available in the area to re-infest.
Thanks for the detailed response ITLD.
I'm surprised that you so readily discount the possibility of an eradication programme. It's generally accepted that no mass vaccination programme will be 100%. However, if the desired thresh hold is achieved then this has the beneficial effect of suppressing spread through reduced exposure. I wouldn't have the foggiest idea what that thresh hold might be for varroa but if co-ordinated annually then I bet it would drastically curb varroa nationally.