Frame trapping

Does anyone use this method of varroa control? I've never heard of it before, how effective do those of you who do use it find it?

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=htt...KIileQa6w&bvm=bv.82001339%2Cd.d2s&h=7AQEYqvt6

i have have a queen frame trap but never got around to using it as it seemed a lot of work and requires working out the optimum time to start in relation to forage in your area

Yes, I wondered how popular it would be due to limiting laying during that time of year. All the things I've read about bee keeping, I just thought it was funny I had never come across it before.

I could not get your link to work but here's a link to a thread started when MM was a boy!

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21509

People I know who have used this method say it's very effective at holding back varroa mites during the summer with the added bonus of no chemicals going into the hive. The frame traps are however quite pricey to buy.

CVB

I have seen one used for drone production for AI
Seems to be a terrible waste of drones to knock a few mites out, when it is so easy to vaporise with OA.










James

James Templer said:

I have seen one used for drone production for AI
Seems to be a terrible waste of drones to knock a few mites out, when it is so easy to vaporise with OA.

James

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Sublimating oxalic was so easy earlier this week I am going to try it for autumn treatment. Just have to organise access to under the OMF so that I don't have to use the entrance for the varrox.

Erichalfbee said:

Sublimating oxalic was so easy earlier this week I am going to try it for autumn treatment. Just have to organise access to under the OMF so that I don't have to use the entrance for the varrox.

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Someone on here suggested a series of 4 treatments, 5 days apart (IIRC) - to catch even that handful of mites which might be hiding in cells should there be any winter laying going on. As it's such a simple and cheap procedure, that's quite a smart idea - which might even make the treatment 100% effective.

LJ

charlievictorbravo said:

I could not get your link to work but here's a link to a thread started when MM was a boy!

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21509

People I know who have used this method say it's very effective at holding back varroa mites during the summer with the added bonus of no chemicals going into the hive. The frame traps are however quite pricey to buy.

CVB

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well i did try it with a home made trap but the queen escaped, so paid nearly £60 for 14x12 one, only to find the PO bent it, so had to send it back, but got sent another which was too late to use, it is now going rusty in the shed

I made one years ago, but never used it. Using drone comb was an easier option at the time.

The bees making drone comb, queen laying up a frame of drone and the bees servicing that brood, just to have it removed always seemed to be a waste of good resources, even if a lot of varroa were removed. So I adopted other approaches, as appropriate, to avoid either frame trapping or drone comb removal.

Hivemaker's multiple oxalic sublimations now appear to be the best bet going forward. Never going to eradicate varroa, so never going to be a 100% cure, but the best yet, I reckon. When I first sublimated about ten years, or more, ago just one application per annum was the normal recommended dose.

Not losing valuable brood has always been one of my priorities and one reason why my shook swarm procedure was carried out by transferring most capped brood to other colonies (which were treated separately, later), rather than discarding it all.

RAB

The cost (effort & brood raising break) outweighs the benefits for most.

Have you considered drone comb removal? Put 1" starter strips in deep frames, keep them at the edge of the brood nest when colonies are expanding, and monitor the resulting drone comb e.g. with an uncapping fork. If mite levels are concerning (5 or more per 100 pupae) then cut out all but the top 1" of comb and replace the new starter comb in the colony; if levels are low then leave the drones to mature.

Very simple to operate - needs only a waste bucket, knife, and uncapping fork - and can be usefully incorporated into regular inspections rather than having its own timetable. Also means that colonies with low apparent mite rates have many drones, colonies with high rates have few drones, so changes the local mating dynamics. Allows worker brood raising to continue uninhibited, and gives the bees the means to raise as many drones as they see fit, rather than squeezing them in around the edges.

This is not a complete mite control, but it can remove significant numbers of mites for relatively little beekeeper effort or colony cost.

kazmcc said:

Does anyone use this method of varroa control? I've never heard of it before, how effective do those of you who do use it find it?

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A strong advocate on the lecture circuit is Ian Homer, search for his name and queen trapping for several references.

Several things need to be in place. It needs a rigorous schedule to rotate frames. It needs a frame trap for every hive, or maybe every other hive. It needs the sacrifice of a few weeks brood production at a time when most hives are gearing up to peak population. You may have a forage pattern locally which could accommodate a queen trapping rotation, even more than one if frame traps are shared between hives. Not sure the forage is predictable enough in many areas, you could find some years you have sacrificed the brood that would be working the most productive flow. It's a good exam answer to be aware of, but I don't know anyone locally who has done more than a limited experiment.

Thanks for your thoughts. Not something I would go for personally, just wondered how popular this method is and was surprised that I had never heard of it. I mean, I'm no expert, far from it, but I have been soaking up every bit of bee keeping information for a few years now and I have never heard of it.

Coincidentally I just spotted this on FB

Mark Patterson‎London Beekeepers Association
Yesterday at 17:05
Following on from Martin Hudson's post on varroa. I have just been to inspect the insertion boards on my hives after I treated them with Oxalic acid last Thursday. The results are encouraging....
The hives which were frame trapped and NOT chemically treated in late summer all had fewer than 40-50 mites per hive.
Hives treated exactly the same but WERE treated with apiguard instead of frame trapping had many 100's one I suspect over 1000 mites fall ( there were too many to count)
All my colonies were shook swarmed in spring beginning the year with low mite infestation, have been artificially swarmed at some point too in the spring- all of which reduces varroa.
Frame trapping really is the way forward for me. I need to buy additional cage traps for the 2015 season so I can frame trap on all my colonies and never have to rely on apiguard again.
Natural mite fall on all my hives has been virtually zero all season including those now showing high mite fall after OA treatment. This illustrates that natural mite drop is not an exact or reliable science for monitoring mite populations.
All these colonies I treated last week were 100% broodless, having lifted frames to check before administering the treatment.

That's where I saw it EricA!

"The frame traps are however quite pricey to buy."

you don't need one - just place the frame with queen on above a QE within an eke, at a slant - you can make notched ekes to support the lugs.

http://www.apicolturangrisani.it/tecnica-apistica/652-blocco-di-covata-con-favo-orizzontale.html

... or put a frame of brood ready to be capped into parent hive when all the brood has emerged following an A/S.

eh?

I think Beeno means
AS. Wait till all the brood has emerged in the parent hive. Put in a frame of open brood from the AS. Wait for it to be capped then destroy it.

More stuff here
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=21509

drstitson said:

"The frame traps are however quite pricey to buy."

you don't need one - just place the frame with queen on above a QE within an eke, at a slant - you can make notched ekes to support the lugs.

http://www.apicolturangrisani.it/tecnica-apistica/652-blocco-di-covata-con-favo-orizzontale.html

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Anyone tried putting the empty drawn comb with queen above the QE in an eke? Depending on when you perform queen trapping you may be lots of brace comb in the eke- I suppose it can be removed? If the queen happy laying in a frame placed horizontally?
This autumn I'm thinking of running 2 one week sessions of queen trapping, removing those combs then let the queen out for a further week. There wont be any sealed worker brood only some drone brood (hopefully by autumn they will have stopped producing drone brood). The plan is then to do my autumn OAV as a one off (should work a lot better without sealed brood). Down side is loss of 2 weeks worth of new workers which are destined to be long lived winter bees. Advantage a one off OAV, which is going to be effective!
Any comments????
Bee-equip are selling some B.S. National Metal Queen Trap's for £25. Anyone got plans of a DIY version - I've got some plastic QE's.

This autumn I'm thinking of running 2 one week sessions of queen trapping, removing those combs then let the queen out for a further week

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A Eureka moment!
A further modification of a cunning plan?
Instead of taking these laid in combs out I can mark each one with a pin and leave them temporarily in the hive as just before capping mites will invade these combs.
Day 0- Trap Q on drawn comb

Day 7- Take laid comb out of trap mark with pin and put in colony
Put new drawn comb in trap with Q

Day 14- Take 2nd laid in comb out of trap mark with pin and put in colony
Release Q and remove trap

Day 21- Remove both marked combs and treat with OAV.

The main aim is to provide a 'capped brood' break so that an OAV will get all those phoretic mites. The added bonus is additional mites will be removed when those now partially capped combs are removed.
Any comments?
I recall there was an article on a similar technique practiced in Italy?