Varroa Mite in new hives

[dutchlion]

I am a new beekeeper. I was fortunate to have a wonderful beekeeper help with my first real inspection of my new hives today. My bees were installed on April 11.

After we were done, I was cleaning up and happened to catch this varroa mite wandering around on comb that we removed. What are my next steps?

[iddee]

Wait until August and do a mite count. You can use the sugar shake method or install a sticky board for 3 days. All packages will have a few varroa, but they should not cause a problem the first summer.

PS. That comb is mostly drones. The mites will always use drone comb when available. They prefer it to worker comb.

[Ray4852]

If you can see mites now,  I would treat. Get yourself a vaporizer and treat one time. Check your mite drop. If you have more than 20 mites treat again after 5 days, if you wait till august. Your hive will be loaded with mites. My mite treatment starts in late March. I'm never done treating. Its imposable to get rid of them. I'm getting ready now to do another oxalic acid check to check my mite load.

[dutchlion]

Just a question, as I'm curious, why it appears that some keepers are consistently treating and others seem to have a more set schedule for treatment?

[Perry]

Personal preference I'm guessing.
I know I have mites, I always will. The only question that comes up is when to treat, and I only treat when the need is absolute. I have already seen mites in some of my colonies now, but until it becomes threatening to the survival of the colony, what they refer to as "economic threshold" (although I hate the term) I hold off.
Our bees have to learn to live with them to some degree. Simply treating at the first sight is not always needed, is laborious, and not "economical" (there's that word again  ).

[Ray4852]

There’s two kinds of beekeepers. Treatment free and the ones that want to treat and keep their bees.  I treat because I want to keep my bees. I don’t want to buy bees every year. My bees are living in an environment with mites too but not as many compared to a treatment  free hive. OAD is cheap. Every time I use it, I’m knocking down my mite load. Come august I want my bees to have a very low mite load not high load. My winter bees are starting to take over the hive. The last two winters have been very harsh. I haven’t lost one hive. Look at the survey results the last two years. Beekeepers blame their loss on something else.

[Bakersdozen]

If you can see mites now,  I would treat. Get yourself a vaporizer and treat one time. Check your mite drop. If you have more than 20 mites treat again after 5 days, if you wait till august. Your hive will be loaded with mites. My mite treatment starts in late March. I'm never done treating. Its imposable to get rid of them. I'm getting ready now to do another oxalic acid check to check my mite load.

This is a package that was installed April 11.  They haven't had time to do much of anything.  The brood break will take care of the imminent dangers of a heavy mite load.  A mite check in the fall would definitely be in order.  At that time the colony numbers will be dropping and mite numbers increasing.

Ray4852- You say you are never done treating and that they are impossible to get rid of.  You might be setting the bar a little high here.  I settle for a mite load that the bees can coexist with.  There is a tipping point when the mites begin to be detrimental to over all bee health and honey production.  I aim for that point.  But as I always say, different parts of the country have different ways of beekeeping that work for them.  I am a long way from western NY.

[iddee]

NO, there are 3 kinds of beeks.

1. The ones who never treat, even if their hives die.

2. The ones that treat constantly, whether they need it or not, until the mites build a resistance and kill their hives.

3. The sensible ones that check regularly and treat when needed. They keep live hives.

I haven't treated in 10 years, but I still check and would treat if needed.

Again, a package doesn't need treating the first month or two.

[Jen]

Baker- "I settle for a mite load that the bees can coexist with.  There is a tipping point when the mites begin to be detrimental to over all bee health and honey production.  I aim for that point.

     How do you determine that point Baker? that point where you feel it's time to treat?

[Ray4852]

Baker

mites are cancer of the bee hive. if you have a few now next month you could have 3 times that. Lets go off topic here. If somebody developed first stage lung cancer you don’t wait till the tumor gets bigger. You treat right away. I have two  hives now with 3 deeps, they are mite factories If I see more than 20 mites on my mite drop I treat. Next month I could have over a thousand on my drop.  I have no mercy for them. They are useless in a bee hive. The problem with beekeepers today. Most of them think the problem is going to go away. Not during our lifetime. Like perry said its very laborious  and expensive to treat. He couldn’t say it any better. Treating with OAD is very laborious. Supers have to come off. I cant see my mites now with 2 eyes. If I ware glasses I have 4 eyes. I still can see them. It wouldn’t hurt to treat a package when you bring it home. Nucs have mites. Its a shame a beekeeper has to pay 150 dollars for a nuc with mites in it. Last year I helped out a young couple with nucs from the south. I told them to treat them right away and re queen them in July with local queens. Not one hive made it thru the winter. They told me they couldn’t see any mites. I didn’t say a thing.

[Jen]

Last year I treated thru the spring to where I didn't see anymore mites drop. So I experimented and waited until September. One day my fellow beek came for a visit and looked on the ground and noticed a bee hopping around, he reached down and picked it up and low and behold Deformed Wing Virus. I waited too long. But this hive was not started with a package either. My determination was to not let time go by 'thinking' that everything is just fine in the hive.

[Slowmodem]

Just a question, as I'm curious, why it appears that some keepers are consistently treating and others seem to have a more set schedule for treatment?

I suppose mites are like me and fire ants.  I know it's going to be an ongoing battle until the day I die.  Some days the ants win, some days I win.  I get rid of them, but they show up somewhere else.  But it's a battle that has to be fought.

[Jen]

Ray4852- "mites are cancer of the bee hive. if you have a few now next month you could have 3 times that.

     Agreed, I have seen that happen in my hives over and over again.

Ray- "If I see more than 20 mites on my mite drop I treat. Next month I could have over a thousand on my drop.

     My tipping point is 10 mites on my sticky board, I treat. Randy Oliver says take the amount of mites you count on the sticky board and multiply by 100, that is how many mites are still in the hive ON MY BEES, which are drilling holes into my bees' abdomens and sucking out their fluids.

Ray- "  Like perry said its very laborious  and expensive to treat. He couldn’t say it any better. Treating with OAD is very laborious. Supers have to come off.

     I going to assume that OAD is Oxalic Drip? Yes that is definately laborous. But if you get a vaporizer for around $100, the investment is done. Then each treatment is just penny's. I don't see that as expensive.
     I don't see why supers have to come off, we eat oxalic acid everyday in many foods. I don't concider oxalic acid a poison.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=48

[tbonekel]

I say wait on the bees and see how they do. I never treat. I have  6 hives including a nuc. A few of the hives are over 2 years old and going strong. Do I have mites? I'm pretty certain of it. Am I lucky?  Probably.  Give your bees a chance and see what they do. Mites are not the only organisms in a hive besides bees. There are beneficial entities that work with bees that we cannot see.  Let them help and see what happens.

[Ray4852]

Jen

my mistake I meant vapor not drip. My two 3 deep hives have more bees that’s why I treat over 20 per drop. my other hives have two deeps. I see fewer mites per drop I still treat all hives at the same time. Its a lot of work taking off supers to treat for mites with vapor. I use a piece of Luan over the queen exclude with a 2 inch rim spacer with a notch in it for the bees to come and go. Put super on rim and treat hive. Super is protected from the vapor. I come back 5 hours later and remove the spacer and wood and put the super back on the excluder. Do this with 6 hives its a lot of work. Its so much easier to treat with the hive bodies only. 

[Jen]

I like that idea tbone, but still being a novice I don't want to jeapordize the bees and their health, and I only have 3-4 hives tops. It might be different if I was commercial and had 800 hives, you just have to take your loses in that case. The thing about varroa and tracheal mites is that you can't see them until they are treated and dead. Like I mentioned, last year I did wait, and almost lost a huge hive to deformed wing virus. It's immensly sad to watch bees crawl around on the ground because their wings are twisted up.

Here is another example I read some time back: Imagine one mite on the abdomen of one single bee... then imagine a creature the size of a basketball on your abdomen sucking the fluids out of your guts. That is a true comparison.

Gives me the willies.... shuddering

[LazyBkpr]

Keep an eye on your hives TBone.. it will be this fall/winter or next spring when you will start to lose them because of the mites.   Kept or feral, the hives in this area last two to three years before becoming overwhelmed.

[riverbee]

"Just a question, as I'm curious, why it appears that some keepers are consistently treating and others seem to have a more set schedule for treatment?"

very true isn't it dutchlion, sure can be confusing?

i have read all the replies here.  because dutchlion indicated from the first post this was a new hive from april 11th of this year......i would not treat, and i would not treat just because i saw a mite wandering around. that's just my HO.

i agree with the replies here of what iddee said. i also like what bakers and tbone said. scott has a point about the 2nd or 3rd year before a loss occurs, sometimes it does, sometimes not.  i have been treatment free for 10 yrs or more, but would treat if i thought necessary.  i also think there is something to be said about over treating our bees. there are so many variables. i think we need to use our best judgment under each of our circumstances before we advise or tell beeks they need to treat for mites, and treat for mites in package or nuc bees.  that's my HO. 

[Bakersdozen]

     How do you determine that point Baker? that point where you feel it's time to treat?

Jen, I just saw this.  First off, I would test in the spring and in the fall.  Absolutely do a mite check in the fall right after honey is harvested.  This is critical because colony numbers start to decline in the fall.  The bee population drops (queen knows she doesn't need a heavy work force and slows down on egg production), but the mite population continues to grow.  The infestation ratio increases, if left untreated, until your bees abscond or just die in the winter.  In the fall, doing a sticky board test over a 24 hr period,  0-20 is a concern, a count of 50 mites would cause alarm.  It's better to do the test over several days and take an average mite count. 

I think constant treatments in any form increases queen mortality.  It would be better to do an integrated pest management program than rely on chemical or organic oil methods.  Requeening in the fall, so that you have a brood break, is a good place to start.
This article, can say it a lot better than I can. http://www.clemson.edu/extension/beekeepers/factsheets/varroa_mite_control_in_sc.html  The section call Treatment Thresholds explains why one should not over treat and should strive for a happy balance between a tolerable mite load and then treating prior to the collapse of the colony.

[dutchlion]

i found this most interesting and wondering if anyone used EO's to help with mites

http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/varroa2.htm