I'm pretty sure I would have better luck finding a needle in a haystack than trying to find a definitive answer as to what would be considered an acceptable mite count. I reached "The End" of the internet the other day searching for it... .
I put SBB's on all my hives last week and just finished up a 24 hr. mite count on my hives yesterday evening. Results are as follows.
Hive #1: 22
Hive #2: 9
Hive #3: 16
Hive #4: 25
Hive #5: 19
Hive #6: 11
Hive #7: 3
When I pulled honey a couple weeks ago one of my queens had layed a few drones in the bottom of one of my honey frames so when I cut them out I checked them for mites and sure enough there were 2-3 mites in about 1/3 of the cells. This concerened me greatly but now that I've got this information I'm not sure I'm in as bad a shape as I thought I was. I purchased enough Apiguard to treat them all but now I"m having second thoughts on treating at all.
Discuss.....
go to michael bush's website...he recommends treating if >50 in a 24 hour drop. he recommends not using apiguard.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#varroa
i am about to do a drop count but i'm going to leave the boards on for 3 days and then count and divide. if i have a problem i will look into the sugar shake which seems to be the least invasive.
There is a very useful site on mite controls that you can go to. Of course, it promotes a product called "Mitegone", but there is intensive information in this site. Check it out. It is good.
http://www.mitegone.com/
Have a wonderful day, great life, and good luck. If you are seeing that many mites in the natural mite drop, you need to treat your hives, no ifs, ands, or buts. My opinion. But, you will have a colony collapse eventually if the mites are not treated before the winter clustering time. Sorry, basic fact, all there is to it. Cindi
Randy I missed the part where Micheal listed to not use Apiguard. Where is that posted?
with such low numbers maybe a sugar dusting is best just to knock down the already small number of mites.
The number of mites counted are only a percentage of what lies within the cells, sucking and eating the life out of the larvae. When you see numbers of mites, you can bet your bottom dollar that there are many, many more being propogated within the cell with the baby bees. Sometimes there can be about 5 baby mites within a cell that was laid by a single varroa mite mother!!!! It is really quite staggaring to think about it, and scarey to boot. Sorry, but this is true. Have a wonderful day, great life, Cindi
Quote from: BMAC on August 21, 2007, 12:20:33 PM
Randy I missed the part where Micheal listed to not use Apiguard. Where is that posted?
Apistan (Fluvalinate) and Checkmite (Coumaphos) are the most commonly used acaracides to kill the mites. Both build up in the wax and both cause problems for the bees and contaminate the hive. I don't use them.
so theres the quote from his discourse on the subject. he doesn't say not to use them but its apparent he doesn't recommend them. o wait....is apiguard and apistan different stuff? theres too many out there for me to keep track of.
thanks Randy. I thought that was what you were referring back to, I just wanted to make sure. Especially considering Apiguard is Thymol based and that is what everyone around here is advertising to use.
Yeah easily confused though.
so is apiguard just a high concentration of thyme oil? i would guess that the sugar we buy is processed with chemicals. i know the time will come that i'll have to choose what to use and since i am now more confused than ever i'm hoping that this year will not be the time.
i guess everything has some kind of parasite and mites might have one.
Quote from: randydrivesabus on August 21, 2007, 01:58:54 PM
i guess everything has some kind of parasite and mites might have one.
mites are a parasite so you might as well give up that hope.
Quote from: Mici on August 21, 2007, 02:23:43 PM
Quote from: randydrivesabus on August 21, 2007, 01:58:54 PM
i guess everything has some kind of parasite and mites might have one.
mites are a parasite so you might as well give up that hope.
parasites don't get parasites?
ummm, highly doubt it, although there were some research on some bacteria that feed on V. Mites or at least kill them, but i'm not sure if it would qualify as a parasite.
RANDYDRIVESABUS
Thymol is extracted from:
1. Thyme (oil)
2. A plant from middle-east, "corum ajowan" ( myrrh)
3. Horsemint (oil)
It is used in Listerine as an anti-fungal and anti-bacteria.
I suspect Thyme is used to extract most of the thymol used in US.
Quote from: randydrivesabus on August 21, 2007, 02:28:18 PM
parasites don't get parasites?
They do. There are nematodes that live between the scales on fleas, for one.
Michale bush does not say not to use Apriguard. In my opinion if you are going to treat your hives then aprigaurd is problay the most safe out of all the chems out there to use. 0 withdrawl days to put on supers which tells me this stuff can't be that bad. If you can do the sugar shake and get results that is the way i would go first if you want to avoid chems.
Not sure,but I think apigard and apistan are two different items.
Apistan is fluvalinate while apigard is made from natural substances.
Your right ken. aprigaurd is thymol based.
yeah...in my post above i didn't realize they were different things. so if apiguard is non-invasive than why do people use powdered sugar?
The sugar is not ingested but promotes grooming and loosens the grip on the bees. Sugar does nothing to the mites embedded in the combs with the larvae. Not sure if apigard has any effect there either but both reduce the adult mite population in the hive.
Aprigaurd is good on the vorroa and treachel (spelling?)mites. the sugar shake(dowda method)only gets the vorroa and does like ken says, starts a hygenic behavior.
HERE i GO SHOOTING THE MOON, I recommend getting bee's that you dont have to do a mite count :) , I know it is hard to believe for most, but bee's are surviving today without using chemical treatments and without small cell, now both might help but you will always fight mites until you get bee's that survive, people use to think Tracheal mite's were bad then they found bee's resistant to them, the same is working for varroa mites but it is in the early stages, but not at the beginning, it is working out because some beekeepers like me refuse to treat and get feral hives that some have some age on them, plus buy a few bee's from beeks that haven't treated in years like PBA Brothers, these all are the bee's that you want...... well go a head and attack me, I dont care I just type what I think,,,,,,,, :-P
Here is a quote from Michael Bush
"The thing to do is measure the mite drop in 24 hours BEFORE you treat. Then measure it WHILE you treat. Then in a few days measure it AFTER you treated. Then you have a better idea what kind of dent you put in the population. 15-20 natural drop in 24 hours is not bad."
Also when I had a very bad infestation in one of my hives I told Michael I would rather use chemicals and not have my hive die. He answered me that using the chemicals would contaminate the wax and eventually the hive will die anyway.
He recommended I continue doing the powdered sugar dusting once a week for about 1-2 months until the count gets better. I followed this advice and now my counts are down.
It is a hard decision and I know this natural way of doing things is not for everyone, especially if you have lots of hives. Believe me, it has been hard on me going in every week and smoking them and taking the hive apart to get all the supers and I have only 2 hives. I am also a hobby beekeeper and can do the natural way. It took me 5 weeks to get the mite population to acceptable levels.
But it is like a catch 22. It seems that if you use the chemicals, you lose the hive anyway. I am now trying to go small cell to put an end to this problem with the mites.
Read about the small cell regression on Michael's website.
You can use grease patties made from equal parts crisco shortening and granulated sugar to keep the tracheal mites at bay. This is not a big deal to do.
Hope I did not confuse you more
Annette in soon to be 100's again Placerville
>so if apiguard is non-invasive than why do people use powdered sugar?
Thymol (apigaurd) still stinks and it's still very temperature dependant. Powdered suger is not temerature dependant and will not make your honey taste like listerine.
Michael,
Correct me if I'm mistaken,but around here they treat when the supers are off the hive.May not be practical everywhere.
>Correct me if I'm mistaken,but around here they treat when the supers are off the hive.May not be practical everywhere.
It's a good plan. But bees move everything, including honey, around at will. If you read any of the old books about cut downs, they often talk about the bees moving the honey out of the brood nest into the comb honey sections.
Apiguard in the fall,dowda spring and summer?