Worst winter ever

ian wallace said:

Ok so you don't know my hives BUT
My bees didn't or have not died from varroa mite
I can assure you of that otherwise I would not have started this thread.

Not being to harsh as you say but I will gladly send you records of all my hives and show you mite counts before and after treatment

Enough said

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It would be interesting to see what your counts where before and after treatment. What treatment did you use last year?

clv101 said:

It would be interesting to see what your counts where before and after treatment. What treatment did you use last year?

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In previous posts, he said sugar dusting or nothing.

Case closed.

itma said:

In previous posts, he said sugar dusting or nothing.

Case closed.

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+1

Hi ITTLD,
Thanks for your honesty. I think it is going to be bad winter losses in due course as a result of Varroa. Lost one to Varroa, despite Thymol and early OA Varroa treatment on broodless colony - impaired winter bees that on a colony I thought would pull through. The one I did not hold out much hope for has a spring in its step. I certainly cannot tell which one dies or survives!

Hi All. I`m happy to report that all my 4 colonies have survived. They experienced a very bad dysentery( or nosema…or both) in a middle of winter, but managed it all right…so far. I thought of sending dead bees in a lab for identifying whether it was nosema or not, but than I thought:” What`s a point? If there is no more efficient remedy than thymol that I already applied, then what that knowledge would change?” So the idea was abandoned.
In a middle of February I`ve put pollen supplement in every single hive in form of thin pad between 2 grease papers(~5mm thick) straight on frames under crownboards.( 3:1 soya flour to yeast, made up to paste with thymollated syrup , plus 1 drop of lemongrass oil per kilo for more attraction) Bees did not eat it until the first week of March when one of my strongest colonies has started to consume the patty. In the middle of March 2 more colonies has started consuming the supplement.
In relatively warm and windless day in the middle of March I quickly inspected my hives and found that the strongest colony has a little bit of cupped brood and plenty of eggs and larva on 2 frames, the other 2 patty eating colonies had only larva and eggs on 2 frames, while my fourth colony ( not eating patty)has bees only in a far corner on 2 frames but quinn has layed eggs too, so… fingers crossed
Thus Finman`s Idea to stimulate brood rearing in the middle of February seems to me difficult to implement ( though the Idea seems to me pretty attractive …. as you can see )unless we really heating up our hives with some sorts of appliances ( but I personally do not like this idea unless I get a free energy supply )
Bees started collecting pollen on 10th of March. The first one was dark orange in color, which means gorse. Now they also bring the yellow one – most probably willow, but also could be an alder, crocus, or even dandelion( I saw it on road edges already ).
So “here we are, here we go”

A lot of people in my area have had high losses this winter.
Myself I have lost 3 so far, one dead out and the other two were missing queens.
Nosema seems to be the main reason I think. Two more of my colonies are dwindling away with little I can do atm due to it being cold.

I'll know for sure in the next week or so if it is nosema waiting for a delivery of a microscope.

Nige.Coll said:

I'll know for sure in the next week or so if it is nosema waiting for a delivery of a microscope.

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Bear in mind that Nosema is endemic, and just because you see spores it does not mean you have significant infection. It took me a while to get " my eye in" and tell the significance of what I was seeing. I do not bother trying to count spores on a grid. Enjoy your microscopy. I find it fascinating.

Last winter was my first with bees and I had 6 colonies going into it. Lost 2. One was a tiny nuc that was completely emptied by wasps in September. It didnt have one single cell of any stores or eggs when I inspected it, I moved its location and I thought it might have been strong enough to get through but it finally died out a week or so ago.

The other loss was a huge hive that was exceptionally strong in Aug/sept. It was in the same apiary as the little nuc and it too was crippled by wasps. I could see through the clear crownboard at xmas that the cluster was too small and it wouldnt make it. I am now almost convinced the decline of this hive was linked to varroa.

Last summer was amazing in the north west and some of my hives were 7 langstroths high, huge brood areas. I treated with apiguard mid sept (prob too late) and my varroa drops were unreal, 2000+ in some hives. This scared the eebeejeebee's out of me so I bought a varrox. I varrox'ed them again asap (3 times. 6 day intervals) and I had a drop of almost the same in some hives!! literally 3000-4000 in my biggest hives. One of these hives had produced 150lb+ of honey too. Another varrox at xmas and again a drop of nearly a 1000 in one. This must point to the fact all my hives were very close to a complete collapse in september. Scary.

I am a complete newbie but I will be putting a great deal more effort into my varroa control this summer.

One thing I would like to ask of those who have used Oxalic acid vaporising is if there is a line you can cross with too many applications? I am thinking of doing another 3 treatments this spring, is this too much?

McNulty said:

One thing I would like to ask of those who have used Oxalic acid vaporising is if there is a line you can cross with too many applications? I am thinking of doing another 3 treatments this spring, is this too much?

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No...doing three treatments five days apart will be fine, even if you did four or five treatments it would still be okay.

Thanks hivemaker,

i was thinking more along the lines of the total number of treatments in a year. I plan to do a spring treatment (3 times, 5 days apart), an autumn treatment (3 times, 5 days apart) and then a single shot hopefully in the broodless period in winter. This would give a total of 7 a year, is this excessive?

Along with a proper regime of drone brood culling i can hopefully keep on top of these little blood sucking bleeders.

McNulty said:

This would give a total of 7 a year, is this excessive?

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No, not excessive at all, although i don't do the mid winter treatment any more.

Hivemaker. said:

No, not excessive at all, although i don't do the mid winter treatment any more.

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I'm into my first beekeeping spring and tentatively approaching the first inspection, but still on the cold side here in deepest Derbyshire. So far my 3 colonies are through the winter. I vaporised on 25 January and had a good mite drop but nothing since. What should my vaporising regime be? I did not realise that there can be multiple treatments, as you suggest.

Hivemaker. said:

No, not excessive at all, although i don't do the mid winter treatment any more.

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Why not? Surely vapping in spring/summer/autumn misses most of the varroa because they are within the sealed brood which the smoke will not penetrate?

when vapourising and there is brood, then any mites in the brood will escape the treatment.
given the life cycles of bees and mites, you are more likely to catch most of the mites if you treat three times, at 5 day intervals.
Do check your mite drop counts to confirm the need, both before and during treatment.

I never had excessive drops on the monitoring boards last summer and my hives had 1000's of mites.

With almost no downside to vaporising I will be monitoring drops no more.

McNulty - same experience here. I lost a colony, probably because of varroa, I'm determined to try and stay ahead of the game this year.

Hmm it seems everyone has lost sight (or interest) in the original theme of this thread including the OP - hasn't been on here since 1600 on the 21st. Maybe he didn't like the answers to his question or was expecting something totally different?
So after a very one sided inquest (this) coroner's verdict - death by idealistic negligence?

Amari said:

Why not? Surely vapping in spring/summer/autumn misses most of the varroa because they are within the sealed brood which the smoke will not penetrate?

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BUT
You don't do it just the once.
Three or four times at five day intervals and 98% of the varroa are hit.

Hi all,
Regarding vapping, how can something so damaging to humans not be bad for bees? All that grey horrible dust laying about the hive for the bees to clear up infinite number of times during the season. Just asking...