Varroa Treatment

[Finman]

How good is formic? I come across it mentioned, but I don't know anyone who uses it.

Formic acid is as good as thymol. It is not recommended by DEFRA but it is much used in Canada.


There are 3 main recommendations by European Varroa Group: thymol, formic acid and oxalic acid.

They are all natural chemicals which do not leave residuals into combs or honey.

No treatment affects under brood cappings.

 

[oliver90owner]

and killing brood from hives, good heavens. What a lesson to a beginner!!!

The more-clever beeks would not waste all that brood - as long as it were healthy - they would transfer some/most to other colonies as they work through their apiaries and finally treating the 'untreated' at the end. More time, more input from the beek but possible. But hardly even a starter for a two-colony beek....

 

[Finman]

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Autumn treatment with thymol or with formic acid means that you protect brood so that winter bees will be healthy.

Bee nursing in spring means that you try to get the hives to foraging condition, and that totalyy depends on how much you have brood at certain moment before yield period.

Then you get a panic and start to destroy brood.
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In early spring it makes sense if the hive has very small pacthes of brood that you kill them and eliminate hidden mites too. Then you may clean off free mites easily.

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[Hivemaker.]

The more-clever beeks would not waste all that brood -

Leaving any frames with eggs or small larvae,and transfering all sealed brood, then treating for 48 hours with thymol,or removing all brood and using oxalic...or just perform a vertical AS, again leaving any frames with eggs or small larvae in the bottom box if using thymol for 48 hours, then treat the top box once all the brood has emerged,kill the virgin queen and unite back as one colony. Adding one frame of open brood then removing once sealed to top and bottom box will also remove a lot of mites, without using any treatment...but i have not found this to be as effective.

 

[madasafish]

Pargyle

I have grown from 2 to 4 TBH (full size) plus 4 TBH nucs in three years and only carried out autumn thymol treatment - Hivemaker's recipe plus added molten wax and used strings soaked in the mix hanging in the brood nest .

(By their design, placing thymol mix above the bars as you would in a national is impossible).

No oxalic, no brood culling, one thymol treatment for 4-6 weeks August/Sept .

I have never treated any swarms - the mite drops are negligible. BUT I shake all my swarms into empty TBHs to force them to draw their own comb before any eggs are laid so there is a natural brood break which will kill off most mites. (You can do the same by using undrawn comb or just starter strips in a conventional hive).

I have bottom boards - with an air gap - all year round under the OMF so I can monitor mite drops when and if I want at any time.

During treatment (from my records)
Mite drops 2010 (2 hives)- hundreds.
Mite drops 2011 (3 hives) - maximum about 80
Mite drops 2012 (4 hives plus 4 nucs) - tens per hive.

2012 was strange due to weather - brood breaks plus 2 queens lost so I am not growing excited ...

Our local Association has found specific hives have much higher mite drops year after year.. and have requeened in 2012 them in an attempt to reduce prevalence (Discussed in Sat pub meet). They use oxalic and thymol.

So my answer is:

brood break for swarms.. (feed like crazy to help them make wax)
one thmyol treat.
Requeen for persistent bad hives.


Of course if I was a TBH zealot... but I'm not

Icing sugar etc I leave for cake makers.

 

[Finman]

Pargyle


No oxalic, no brood culling, one thymol treatment for 4-6 weeks August/Sept .

I have never treated any swarms -


brood break for swarms.. (feed like crazy to help them make wax)
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very strange!

how much you use to get honey from hives?

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[madasafish]

very strange!

how much you use to get honey from hives?

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None last year...