Varroa and how to proceed??

Hello all

So i put a white board above my OMF and checked it 24hrs later to do a summer Varroa Monitoring session. Now feeling very depressed. This is my first attempt at monitoring, being only 4.5 months into the wonderful world of Bee keeping.

How ever and few points i need help with.

1/ I have a Bee Gym ( http://www.beegym.co.uk/ ), i'm dubious if it works but no harm done for being gulible and losing £15.00 BUT if it does work should i not have removed the device becasue if my girls are cleaning themselves over and above the "norm" I will not be recording and tabulating a "natural mite drop". worst case is my girls are doing well grooming and then im going to blitz them with a treatment!

2/ It's hard counting mites in an area of 400mm x 400m (Est. 14x12 National BB). I took 6 photos of the board then assessed them, but it would be great if someone could have a look at my pictures and advise if i have assessed the drop well or not?

Just looked at the beegym website and all I can say is I am glad he believes in his product.
Publishing data from 2 hives with 2 control hives I suspect he will be struggling for it to be statistically significant. The sharp increase in drop post application just happens to coincide with warmer weather April/May more brood more mites. Hmmmmm.


I would do a sugar roll or better still sacrifice some bees and do an alcohol wash. Others on here have suggested natural drop is not an accurate marker of varroa population


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Sorry. Can't see pictures.
24 hours is not long enough unless you are doing an accelerated drop.
This is easy. Vape and measure mites dropping in 24 hours.
20 is my cut off point

Finally managed to upload pics

lots of mites in #1.
If that's a 24 hour drop,then I would treat asap..
Edit
Don't be depressed .. we all have varroa.. ..at least our bees do...
BeeGymn? snake oil and mirrors imo...

As far as counting, mark into manageable squares and count each..

Yep I estimate 44 mites on total in 24hrs!!

Thanks for the message. I got two supers on, so should I remove the frames from both supers and then treat the Brood Box with the empty supers on to give the bees some room? Also i'm only been going for 4 months of so and did expect to do a treatment in a month as in 01/09/17 and by that time my supers would be off and my "bee Mentor" would be back from their 6 weeks in France and i could be guided through the treatment! So i'm alittle lost as there are so many treatments as to which to chose or use? any sugestions please?

SuffolkPaul said:

Yep I estimate 44 mites on total in 24hrs!!

Thanks for the message. I got two supers on, so should I remove the frames from both supers and then treat the Brood Box with the empty supers on to give the bees some room? Also i'm only been going for 4 months of so and did expect to do a treatment in a month as in 01/09/17 and by that time my supers would be off and my "bee Mentor" would be back from their 6 weeks in France and i could be guided through the treatment! So i'm alittle lost as there are so many treatments as to which to chose or use? any sugestions please?

Click to expand...

You use MAQS with supers on. One strip only. I would vape if they were mine. Do you have access to a vaporiser?

Hi Erichalfbee,

Thanks for the advice and reply. I've ordered MAQS 2 dose pack, and believe i should place 1 strip across multiple frames in the BB and i have a 12x14 BN deep with 10 frames. My MAQS will arrive tomorrow.

I dont have a vaporiser, but a quick look at Thornes i can see the Varrox Vaporiser @ £115, and 35g of Api-Bioxal crystals for £10.99 so i shall have to wait before getting this kit!

Stupid Question: MAQS comes in the 2 x dose pack, for two hives. I think i shall get two strips in each of the packs, so should i put 1 or 2 strips on the BB box for this treatment?

best Paul

One strip should be ample for a national brood. Thornes also offer a cheaper vaporiser, something to consider. They also offer Oxalic for cleaning your hive.

Yes one strip
Unused can go in the freezer which will double its shelf life.

SuffolkPaul said:

Hi Erichalfbee,

Thanks for the advice and reply. I've ordered MAQS 2 dose pack, and believe i should place 1 strip across multiple frames in the BB and i have a 12x14 BN deep with 10 frames. My MAQS will arrive tomorrow.

I dont have a vaporiser, but a quick look at Thornes i can see the Varrox Vaporiser @ £115, and 35g of Api-Bioxal crystals for £10.99 so i shall have to wait before getting this kit!

Stupid Question: MAQS comes in the 2 x dose pack, for two hives. I think i shall get two strips in each of the packs, so should i put 1 or 2 strips on the BB box for this treatment?

best Paul

Click to expand...

Thornes sell a budget one: https://www.thorne.co.uk/health-and-feeding/varroa/oxalic-based?product_id=7277

There is some doubt in my mind about whether or not you should use Oxalic Acid with supers on. Last year in July when one of my hives had a fairly sudden increase in mites dropped, I placed a feeder board below the supers and vaped the brood box from underneath. I did not think that the very small amount of oxalic acid getting into the supers would adversely affect the flavour of the honey but as oxalic is a natural constituent of honey, some proper tests need to be carried out to establish the impact of oxalic vapourisation when supers are in place. If I get time I might do the maths to take a stab at this impact.

"What do we want?"
"Evidence based research"
"When do we want it?"
"After peer review"

CVB

.
If you are hurry to treat mites, you could separate first brood and other hive .
Brood has 80% out of mites.

Brood part needs long treatment
Artificial swarm is a way to separate brood. Then you may treat the swarm hive with oxalic trickling or with spraying. Brood part is better to treat with formic acid.

A Dutch research has explained how to do this in summer.
To treat a hive with yield is not a good idea.

Hi Paul - Firstly no panic required. Remove suitable stores for extraction leaving a super on. Treat with MAQS following the instructions, I personally wouldn't do half a treatment - either do it or don't!

.
I got lots of varroa losses after last summer. From some hives I took brood off and separated from shook swarm. Those did well in Spring.

I treated the shook swarm with trickling. That hive made wintering brood in one week when I fed it with sugar. It had lots of pollen.

The brood part emerged and I got one langstroth box full bees. But after a week all bees have died. Only cup full was left. = CCD

Now, when yield is over, I make separation work that I get mite free winter brood.

It would be good first to look with dust sugar rest, what is the level of mites. But from drone combs I can see that is bad. While I test the brood part, I separate the bees from brood.

Somebody smiles out there. I had 5 queens with cupfull bees in end of Aprill. I took only queens and put them into new nucs. Now those nucs have 7 boxes and they have brought 60-100 kg honeh per hive. That needed all tricks what I know to build up colonies.



.

Sincere thanks to all those who have replied.

Ok, today is the day to treat (evening)

So i got a 12x14 BN deep BB with 2 x national Supers on.

Questions (sorry)
1/ Do i still apply one strip?
2/ I will ensure the hive entrance block is removed so bees have the whole width of the hive for entry and egress
3/ I have a OMF which i intend to leave in but do i remove the board below the OMF which seals the hive in the bottom?

Best Paul

SuffolkPaul said:

Questions (sorry)
1/ Do i still apply one strip?

3/ I have a OMF which i intend to leave in but do i remove the board below the OMF which seals the hive in the bottom?

Best Paul

Click to expand...

It makes formic acid gas, and the consentration depends, how big volume the hive has.
If you keep bottom open, the gas escapes from the hive.
.

Further to my post #12 above, I've been giving the question of contamination of honey by Oxalic Acid some thought.

Suppose I treat with 3.0 gm of oxalic and 2/3 of that stayed in the brood box, the rest going into the, say, 2 supers.

So, 1 gm of Oxalic goes into the supers and let us assume 2/3 of that will stay in the first super.

So, 0.7 gm of OA is in the first super. If we assume that super has 7kg of honey in it, the percentage of added OA in the honey of the first super is 0.01%. That's not very much - probably undetectable in terms of taste.

The above only deals with the OA, not the other stuff in the approved medicine.

Have I made a gross error somewhere in these calculations or is the advice to remove supers before OA treatment a kneejerk reaction to a new situation on the part of the authorities?

CVB

charlievictorbravo said:

Further to my post #12 above, I've been giving the question of contamination of honey by Oxalic Acid some thought.

Suppose I treat with 3.0 gm of oxalic and 2/3 of that stayed in the brood box, the rest going into the, say, 2 supers.

So, 1 gm of Oxalic goes into the supers and let us assume 2/3 of that will stay in the first super.

So, 0.7 gm of OA is in the first super. If we assume that super has 7kg of honey in it, the percentage of added OA in the honey of the first super is 0.01%. That's not very much - probably undetectable in terms of taste.

The above only deals with the OA, not the other stuff in the approved medicine.

Have I made a gross error somewhere in these calculations or is the advice to remove supers before OA treatment a kneejerk reaction to a new situation on the part of the authorities?

CVB

Click to expand...

To minimise exposure of honey to the treatment.

Take off the supers and place to one side.
Place a crownboard or other means of sealing on the top of the brood box.
Sublimate your chosen oxalic acid product into the brood box.
On completion and removal of the sublimator replace the supers.
The surfaces and bees within the brood box are coated with microcrystals of oxalic acid. This will be effective for 4 or 5 days and bees not already coated will encounter the OA as they move around the colony.
New, untreated bees will emerge from sealed cells along with varroa mites so repeat the process after five days and again five days after that. Some beekeepers apply a fourth treatment to be absolutely certain to cover an entire brood cycle.

Clean off the caramelised and charred junk additives (mostly sucrose) that were introduced to the pure oxalic acid by the licenced product holder and store your sublimator for future use.

Gilberdyke John said:

To minimise exposure of honey to the treatment.

Take off the supers and place to one side.
Place a crownboard or other means of sealing on the top of the brood box.
Sublimate your chosen oxalic acid product into the brood box.
On completion and removal of the sublimator replace the supers.
The surfaces and bees within the brood box are coated with microcrystals of oxalic acid. This will be effective for 4 or 5 days and bees not already coated will encounter the OA as they move around the colony.
New, untreated bees will emerge from sealed cells along with varroa mites so repeat the process after five days and again five days after that. Some beekeepers apply a fourth treatment to be absolutely certain to cover an entire brood cycle.

Clean off the caramelised and charred junk additives (mostly sucrose) that were introduced to the pure oxalic acid by the licenced product holder and store your sublimator for future use.

Click to expand...

I'm not disagreeing with you that what you have written is indeed the received wisdom but the purpose of my post was to open a discussion about the effect of sublimated Oxalic Acid on any honey that might be in the supers. My calculations suggest that a single treatment would have virtually no effect on the honey - 0.01% increase in OA in the honey. Have I made a mistake somewhere? If not, then it would appear that it might be safe to carry out a single treatment on a colony with sublimated OA (with no additives) with supers in place. The advantage is a treatment that does not disturb the bees and does not involve the beekeeper in lifting heavy supers on and off the brood box twice, with no adverse effect on the honey in the supers.

CVB