Whats was your total Varroa drop after oxalic

[oliver90owner]

having been told it has been treated

5 mites when you got it were enough for over 300 now.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Didn't actually count them but two that didn't get full Apiguard in the autumn I'd say had a heavyish drop (2-300)

 

[Karol]

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).

2) Apart from bee hives are there any other 'sanctuaries' that varroa might be found in that would escape such a concerted eradication programme?

3) Have you seen a corresponding decline in hive deaths as a consequence of your prophylactic treatments viz viral pathogens?

Thanks

 

[Goran]

When You mention some national programmes. 2011. and 2012. we had some of this type. It seems that drastically lower varroa population. After oxalic, unfortunatelly I have only one floor with wire under strong society ( and no free time to put some oiled paper on solid floors of others) . And after month zero varroa. All the time are low temp. so ants can't mess this number.
To don't be misunderstood I know there are varroa certainly but at such low level that till august ( or at the end of july) I don't have to think about it.

I think with some national programmes You can have only benefit ( but to be done at same time as much beekepers can or all).

 

[Into the lions den]

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

..

 

[TOBY-3652]

Finished treating last 5 hives on wednesday. One hive dropped 1400 on thursday and 700 friday... Am i glad i did this one

 

[oliver90owner]

a 2000+ kill over two days! Had you no idea that the infestation was that severe?

 

[TOBY-3652]

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

 

[Karol]

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.
..

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.

 

[Into the lions den]

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.

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.

 

[gavin]

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.

 

[BeeJayBee]

I'm surprised that you so readily discount the possibility of an eradication programme.

How would you propose to deal with feral colonies?

Getting access to many of these colonies would mean serious (and expensive) building work, or old trees being cut down. It wouldn't be popular.

 

[Karol]

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.

But no more or less complex than for example flu or MMR vaccination programmes. Uptake cannot be forced and therefore requires engagement. I think that goes without saying in this instance. However, any concerted action which reduces the back ground population of varroa must presumably reduce the incidence or rate of re-infestation. Surely the question therefore is how to incentivise beeks to participate in concerted action. Do local associations try at least to get their members to harmonise their eradication efforts?

 

[Karol]

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.

That's your problem - it's your (judgemental pedestallic) reading.

Why don't you try looking at some of the ways that cancers are treated. That might just give you an insight into the tools/techniques that beeks are lacking in their fight against varroa.

 

[alanf]

...However, any concerted action which reduces the back ground population of varroa must presumably reduce the incidence or rate of re-infestation...

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.

 

[MuswellMetro]

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

apiguard kill rate can be 70-80% in the wrong weather so you can still have a high residual mite population especially if the drop is high, rather than your veiw that a high drop with thymol means i dont need to do oxalic...thymol in my veiw is just a holding treatment to knock them back so you have healthy winter bees, wherase oxalic is the treatment that kills 97%

 

[Karol]

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 that Alan. It makes perfect sense that there is no immunisation herd effect. Perhaps it was a little misleading of me to cite vaccination programmes. I quess I was just trying to illustrate the need for a 'buy in' from participants and that this has been achieved in other complex models. Education is clearly important but I also think there has to be a common will and other mechanisms to incentivise concerted participation.

It strikes me that varroa infestation is much more akin to 'cancer' treatment models which inavriably require multiple agents used over repeated cycles to deliver higher efficacy.

I fully accept that there will be those that treat and those that won't and that there will be ferals. However, if it is accepted that there are those that will treat then it strikes me that this activity should be co-ordinated to achieve better outcomes and then promotional/PR campaigning undertaken to maximise the number of participants.

 

[yzalich]

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.

Browsing! - couldn't help but comment! ITLD hit the nail almost squarely! The other more important reason for leaving the ferals alone - is that the ferals are the 'Great Hope' for Varroa tolerant bees due to Natural Selection. The Primorskis did it! Give the bee its freedom back!

Yzalich

 

[BobsBees]

My personal results so far.

Varroa count so far after Oxalic treatment on 1 hive only at my home apiary.
4th January Day 1. 40
5th January Day 2. 140
6th January Day 3. 66
7th January Day 4. 51
8th January Day 5. 38
9th January Day 6. 53
10th January Day 7. 11
11th January Day 8. 46
Sat 12th January Day 9. 21
13th January Day 10. 10
14th January Day 11. 23
15th January Day 12. 21
16th January Day 13. 28
17th January Day 14. 18
18th January Day 15. 24
19th January Day 16. 20
20th January Day 17. 9
21st January Day 18. 14
22nd January Day 19. 20
23rd January Day 20. 13
24th January Day 21. 7
This the last day of counting 7 Varroa one of which was alive and running. So the total number 623. Double that for losses, like some left in the comb and stuck on the surface of the OMF floor = 1246 This spread over 7 seams of Bees. How many bees in 7 seam cluster? Guessing now 1300+... I will come back to this later today after I take some measurements.....OK its now 13.12hrs 4hrs later.
I have been looking at Yates 'beekeeping study notes' page 327, Dr Jeffrees determined that a 4.4 inch cluster contained 7,500 bees. But my cluster measures over 7 inches, so maybe there are more than 10,000 bees in my Hive 2. No wonder they can consume 750g of Fondant in around 10 Days.
So in conclusion 1246 Varroa in 10,000 bees is NOT good, so although I did not treat in the Autumn of 2012 they did need to be treated in the winter. Job done.
I am now considering a further treatment this week-end just to see if there is another large kill of Varroa in the next two weeks. to be continued.
Bob.

 

[Tom Bick]

Interesting results BB and if I read it correct you missed Thymol treatments in the early autumn? if so this was a bad move and as I am concerned a far more important treatment than Oxalic Acid. The result of the Varroa concentrated on an ever decreasing brood pattern at a time when the bees are trying to raise winter bees is not good for the bees health.
Your bees may be ok and some treatment is better than non.