where have the varroa gone?

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biglongdarren

Drone Bee
Joined
Oct 4, 2010
Messages
1,057
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Location
Mourne mountains
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
20+
with this being my first winter keeping bees i just treated for varroa with Bayvarol and didnt want to chance with the acid incase i mucked up... i am able see everything that falls from one of my hives as i have a slate tile a few inches under the mesh floor.
There was always a few mites on the tile but the last few times i have been at the hive i havent seen any mites,does this mean that the queen is laying and that the mites have all gone into the sealed cells or what?
Darren
 
Hi Darren,
I think if you do a search on Bayvarol, and have a read up on what you find you may wish to have a rethink ,
 
Hi arl
if you look at Darrens location,you may understand why they use bavarol,no reported cases of resistant mites in NI yet.
 
Darren
either something is eating any mites that fall out through the mesh floor,or they are being blown away,your mesh floor is blocked by dead bee's so none are falling out,you don't have any mites,or any you do have are now in sealed brood,or you have resistant bee's that are removing the mites and carrying them away,or all the bee's are dead along with the mites and in a heap on the floor.
 
Darren
either something is eating any mites that fall out through the mesh floor,or they are being blown away,your mesh floor is blocked by dead bee's so none are falling out,you don't have any mites,or any you do have are now in sealed brood,or you have resistant bee's that are removing the mites and carrying them away,or all the bee's are dead along with the mites and in a heap on the floor.

Hey,all the bees are alive and seem to be doing well,there is very if next to none dead on the mesh floor at the minute,and the wind is no windier now than when they were on the slate tile.
there was a few on the underside hanging on dead,did they just get lost or what and didnt makeit back?
 
with this being my first winter keeping bees i just treated for varroa with Bayvarol and didnt want to chance with the acid incase i mucked up... i am able see everything that falls from one of my hives as i have a slate tile a few inches under the mesh floor.
There was always a few mites on the tile but the last few times i have been at the hive i havent seen any mites,does this mean that the queen is laying and that the mites have all gone into the sealed cells or what?
Darren
With my first hive last year I studiously checked the Varroa tray each day and found pleasing results. Later in the year I discovered that I had a massive problem with Varroa and nearly lost the colony through deformed wing. What had been happening is that ants (or similar) had been eatimng the mites as they fell throug the OMF. Once i put each hive stand leg in oil to stop the ants all of a sudden I got more accurate readings.
 
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