Micklemus81
New Bee
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2022
- Messages
- 35
- Reaction score
- 9
- Location
- Wollaton Park Nottingham
- Number of Hives
- 2
The powers that bee gave a chart for counted varroa per day re the infestation by Varroa mites counted on a tray under (of course) a mesh floor.
I found that icing sugar did not make any mite or mites drop off any bees that most definitely had varroa on them.
When I saw 2 almost dead bees in front of the hive with DWV I associated that (luckily) with the fact that they might still be infested with varroa
despite two severe latherings of icing sugar since 16 July to Dec 5th 21.
A beekeeper was right and very sarky when he said you can do all the icing sugar shakes and see no mites but believe it when I say they are still there and doing harm.
I did a sublimation with 3 gram of oxalic acid Dec 5th 21 and three days later counted 60 mites on the catch sheet with cooking oil painted on it. I was surprised that colony got through the winter OK.
Not wanting to hang about early April 22, I performed another fumigation but after seeing Cameron jacks deliberations I upped the dose to 3.5 gram. He says 4 gram is considered minimum in his trials of 3 days x 6 times apart vaporisations. He says he is disappointed that the method is not effective as he expected. He added 2 gramms as advocated by some is useless.
3 days wait for the mites to die after fumigation - counted 80. The 5th December record = count was 60 mites so that meant in my humble opinion that there were mites of unknown quantity most definitely still on the bees when they went into winter. In hindsight and with more evidence as per Dr Jack's research I wished I'd have done more, much more fumigations.
A week after the count of 80, I evaluated how can delivering the same substance in a different guise have more success? Especially looking at the situation through the eyes of an engineer. I would have though that a searching vapour similar to a gas would have cured the problem.
I was pleasantly surprised but wrong.
Always keep an open mind. The dribble or spraying as a delivery method must kill lots of mites and if there are only a few hundred those methods may well be sufficient to be successful . It might be that as the man said in the USA this might just be the silver bullet we've been hoping for. Both he and Randy Oliver and most professionals use the kill method now with washing up liquid diluted in water for the 300 or so bee infestation check.
It has been said that counting mites that drop onto a sheet is not accurate so I must enquire why that is stated?
When 300 bees are killed could they not be the actual bees that have no mites attached to them out of the 40.000 bees or so in the hive?
I found that icing sugar did not make any mite or mites drop off any bees that most definitely had varroa on them.
When I saw 2 almost dead bees in front of the hive with DWV I associated that (luckily) with the fact that they might still be infested with varroa
despite two severe latherings of icing sugar since 16 July to Dec 5th 21.
A beekeeper was right and very sarky when he said you can do all the icing sugar shakes and see no mites but believe it when I say they are still there and doing harm.
I did a sublimation with 3 gram of oxalic acid Dec 5th 21 and three days later counted 60 mites on the catch sheet with cooking oil painted on it. I was surprised that colony got through the winter OK.
Not wanting to hang about early April 22, I performed another fumigation but after seeing Cameron jacks deliberations I upped the dose to 3.5 gram. He says 4 gram is considered minimum in his trials of 3 days x 6 times apart vaporisations. He says he is disappointed that the method is not effective as he expected. He added 2 gramms as advocated by some is useless.
3 days wait for the mites to die after fumigation - counted 80. The 5th December record = count was 60 mites so that meant in my humble opinion that there were mites of unknown quantity most definitely still on the bees when they went into winter. In hindsight and with more evidence as per Dr Jack's research I wished I'd have done more, much more fumigations.
A week after the count of 80, I evaluated how can delivering the same substance in a different guise have more success? Especially looking at the situation through the eyes of an engineer. I would have though that a searching vapour similar to a gas would have cured the problem.
I was pleasantly surprised but wrong.
Always keep an open mind. The dribble or spraying as a delivery method must kill lots of mites and if there are only a few hundred those methods may well be sufficient to be successful . It might be that as the man said in the USA this might just be the silver bullet we've been hoping for. Both he and Randy Oliver and most professionals use the kill method now with washing up liquid diluted in water for the 300 or so bee infestation check.
It has been said that counting mites that drop onto a sheet is not accurate so I must enquire why that is stated?
When 300 bees are killed could they not be the actual bees that have no mites attached to them out of the 40.000 bees or so in the hive?
