why have they gone?

[Mrs Soup]

Hombre - Thanks for the advice, swapping location hadn't occured to us. Think we may give it a go.

No photo becuase I wasn't sure what to take a photo of! how to take a photo to adequately illustrate that there were no bees was simply beyond me, sorry.

Other questions raised by various posters

6 frames referred to in the early posts was brood when we put the first the Apiguard on.

Apiguard placed on top of the brood with the supers removed, two treatments added the second one after two weeks. I think this was the general concensus here, last year we left the supers on, but we used Apilife var. The weird thing was that none of the colonies took much of the apiguard away, which I though was what they were supposed to do.

Will update on progress. At least we are having another week of mild weather, give them more of a chance.

 

[itma]

...Apiguard placed on top of the brood with the supers removed, two treatments added the second one after two weeks. I think this was the general concensus here, last year we left the supers on, but we used Apilife var. The weird thing was that none of the colonies took much of the apiguard away, which I though was what they were supposed to do. ...

National hive.
So, you took the supers off and put the Apiguard tray directly on top of the frame top bars. What else went above the brood?
Did you have a sticky inspection board in while treating with Apiguard? Do you have a number for the mite fall during the treatment?
When was the treatment, and how would you describe the weather in your area at that time?


Earlier you said:

Rightly or wrongly we decided to attempt to save the colony. There was so much varroa that we certainly couldn't unite.

When did the serious varroa level become known?

 

[oliver90owner]

Itma is, of course, fishing to ascertain if an eke was used above the brood box, or not.

If no eke was fitted the treatment may well have been a totally wasted exercise as each apiguard tray is almost 10mm deep and would have been nicely blanked off (virtually lidded) from the bees, by the crownboard. The 'small amount used' could simply be some of the thymol (likely a sub-lethal dose for the mites) subliming away. If a mesh floor as well, and even more-so if left open, would diminish further any hope of reducing the mite population.

That situation seems to be indicated by the apparent lack of efficacy of the apiguard in this case. The other colonies may need checking, too, as an urgency I would suggest.

RAB