varroa mites

[Jen]

Lee- "While we are touching the subject of MAQS treatments, does anyone have any experience with one strip applications (meaning, a half dose to knock down a mite population until a better time to treat)?

     Yes I did, a 1/2 treatment or 1 pad, before purchasing my OAV. I talked to a commercial beek in the area first. They use only one pad and get good results. I used the one MAQS pad for the seven days, and it knocked down approx 2,000 mites. The person that i was working with at the time said to get a MAQS pad on my hive NOW! (bees were in trouble) and then order the OAV and continue from there. I would do it again if need be. But it showed me that one pad is enough.... boy! that is some stinky stuff.

Lee- "I trust mite counts using powdered sugar or alcohol rolls and not mite drops.

      I tried both of these methods before I went with the sticky board count. They work fine and I think they are dependable. Frankly, I don't want to kill a cups worth of bees in an alcohol wash to do a mite count. Sugar is messy and attract ants. So, I'm happy with my sticky boards   

[Lburou]

Jen - thanks for the report of success with a half dose of MAQS!  I've never used MAQS, but have several frozen in reserve. 

For a comparison of powder sugar roll and alcohol counts, we used sample of 458 bees (a misestimation of 300 bees ;-) ), the powdered sugar roll revealed five mites.  Then, we added windshield washer fluid to the same batch of bees.  the fluid did not reveal more mites, not one more.  So, the powdered sugar roll is pretty good and you can put the bees back into the hive.  Several scientific people, Randy Oliver for example, have concluded the mite drop counts as less than optimal.  Many are moving away from screened bottom boards as well, so the mite drops are not very easy then.

> >I am wondering if screen bottom boards are worth the extra  since
> I typically do the "wash" method for testing for Varroa.

I came to the same conclusion.  SBBs are necessary when one uses sticky
boards or is doing powdered sugar dusting.  Both of those lost favor with
me, at which point the problems with screened bottoms outweighed the
benefits.  We've been rotating our screened bottoms out of our operation.
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

Not trying to pick a fight here, just sharing an evolving point of view.  If screened bottom boards and mite drop work for you, GREAT!  The driving force encouraging us to switch back to solid bottom boards is our daily 30-40 degree temperature fluxuations in early spring.  The solid bottom boards allow bees to keep the brood nest warm and get brood rearing going earlier in spring, resulting in a larger population for our spring flow, which has already begun.  (It also gives larger populations for swarm season, so one needs to be vigilant on that front as well).  :-)

Marion, do you have anything to report after your treatments?

[brooksbeefarm]

If i think i have a mite problem i use HBH with a Thyme oil mix in 1 to 1 sugar water, I then pour this in over a plastic box of cut mop strands and let it soak for a day or two. I then put 3 strands over every other frame in the brood boxes, i do this twice in the spring and once in the fall. Yes Squirt i'm an old Redneck with a touch of weird Irish blood . I didn't do it last year and lost more hives than i ever have, but we had a weird winter also, so i can't say not using my treatment was the cause? I forgot to mention that when the girls start dragging the mop strands out the front door is when i give them another round. This is just what i do and i think it works for me? So don't think it's the magic bullet. Jack

[Jen]

Hi Lee hubby designed this bottom board for me. It is a screen bottom board with a vented drawer underneath. So when the drawer is closed it works like a vented bottom board. When I pull out the drawer I can see what's going on in my hive. I have found the sticky board to be a valuable source of information. So, far I haven't had any wax moths in my hives, the moths and larvae get stuck on the sticky board before they can enter the hive. I did the first of three OA treatments last Sunday, I open the drawer and can see that I have well over 1,000 mite kill. This method works so nicely for me 





PS Jen is not a fighter, she's an Oooomer 

[Lburou]

Pretty nifty Jen, your design would keep some heat in the hive at times it is beneficial too. 

I like the idea of wax moths stumbling and sticking on the sticky board!!!

[riverbee]

"just sharing an evolving point of view.  If screened bottom boards and mite drop work for you, GREAT!  The driving force encouraging us to switch back to solid bottom boards is our daily 30-40 degree temperature fluxuations in early spring.  The solid bottom boards allow bees to keep the brood nest warm and get brood rearing going earlier in spring, resulting in a larger population for our spring flow, which has already begun.  (It also gives larger populations for swarm season, so one needs to be vigilant on that front as well).  :-)

........ Many are moving away from screened bottom boards as well"

i would agree with lee about the solid bottom boards, with that said,i have never used the sbb's.  to what lee said, i have read a number of articles relative to a number of beeks moving away from these, or using them in summer months in the south primarily, and replacing with solids for winter months. 

"If i think i have a mite problem i use HBH with a Thyme oil mix in 1 to 1 sugar water, I then pour this in over a plastic box of cut mop strands and let it soak for a day or two. I then put 3 strands over every other frame in the brood boxes"

jack what's your irish recipe for this? amount of Hbh,  amount of Thyme oil?  how did you ever come up with this? just curious.

lee mentioned the powder sugar roll, attached are two sets of instructions from the university of minnesota, the 2nd one uses a 'gizmo', you can buy it or make one yourself, i think the u of m has plans for this as well.  the first method does work well.

[brooksbeefarm]

It's really not my recipe, i got it from Alpha6 (Dave) on another forum several years ago. His recipe is.

1 teaspoon thyme oil
1 teaspoon lemongrass oil
4 cups water
4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon of lecitain- put it in 1/4 cup of water and let soak over night, strain it to remove any flakes. Then mix the two oils in it to make it mix with the sugar syrup.
He made bigger batches and used a garden sprayer to spray on each frame, bees and all twice in the spring two weeks apart and once in the fall. Being a redneck i went with the home made HBH recipe and put thyme oil in it and used the mop head cotton strands soaked in it and laid it over the brood frames, this way it worked 24/7 and i didn't have to take every frame out to spray them. You can also feed it to the bees. Jack

[riverbee]

thanks jack!

[Perry]

Screened bottom boards and natural  drops are effective to a degree if a few other things are followed. I helped a fellow a few years ago that had booming hives that were collapsing but had really low mite count on his bottom boards. When we tore his hives apart it was quite obvious what had happened. He had so much burr comb in there from not going through regularly that mites couldn't have fallen through to the bottom board even if they wanted to. I almost needed a cold chisel to get some of that stuff apart.

[pistolpete]

On a similar vein,  I had a couple of hives where the ants were carrying away all the mites.  Only when I added oil to the boards did I start to get accurate counts.