Varroa Control - Experiend Beeks Please Chime In

[Midwest WI]

I think I have too much on my mind lately. :-P

I'm a second-year beek so take that into consideration.  I'm reading and learning as much as I can through this forum and books, etc.

Here is what I'm wondering.  My thought aren't totally clear on this, but I'll try to describe what I'm thinking as best I can.

So varroa only lay in open cells in which an egg is present, correct?  Before the cell has been capped, correct? 

And a break in the honey bee brood cycle would/should have some effect on the population of varroa, correct?  As long as there are no new eggs in open cells for a period of time?

So, could a person remove the queen from the hive for a period of time during the spring or summer months so that a break in the brood cycle occurs, thereby also breaking the cycle at least temporarily of Varroa.  Then could one place the queen back into the same hive which was queenless for that period of time?

And here is where I need the experienced beeks to chime in...

How long of a break in the brood cycle needs to occur for their to be a positive effect or lessening effect on the population of varroa within the hive?

What time of the season would be the best time to try this?

Would this even work?  Would it have any effect on varroa populations?

What I was thinking was that if I could find the queen I would take her and some nurse bees and place her in a mini-nuc or similar for a period of time and then after that period of time is up, reintroduce her to the original hive.

I suppose that if the queen was out of the hive for too long, then they will start supersedure cells or a person would get a laying worker, and so on and so forth. 

What are your thoughts?

[Robo]

Yes,  some folks do force brood breaks to help with varroa.  In fact I think we have a member here on the forum from South America that explained his process.   You don't need to remove the queen and then have to worry about re-introducing her.  Simply caging her in the colony will prevent her from laying.

[FRAMEshift]

Or do a split to make a new hive with your queen.  By the time your original hive has made a new queen, you will have had about a 1 month break in the brood cycle.  That should help.

We do brood break splits about 3 weeks before the end of the main flow.  That way the bee population starts to decline at the beginning of the dearth and recovers in time for the Fall flow.  And if you wait at least 9 days after the split, there will be no open brood and you can dust with powdered sugar without doing harm to brood.

[BjornBee]

I think many beekeepers miss the point about "breaking the mite cycle" and think if you simply stop the bees from raising brood for some period of time, you get mites under control. Nothing is that simply.

Brood breaks via splits and requeening, at a time prior to the big buildup in the early fall, can decrease the mite totals and limit their damage by a few different IPM approaches. They include:

1) In conjunction with requeening and splitting you install younger vigorous queens not yet through a seasonal change. So they build up very fast like in the spring and far out pace mites.

2) With a brood break, you get all the mites in a position to treat if needed. Simply approached such as sugar dusting and other soft chemical treatments (api-guard/api-life) are more effective. With all the mites in the open, you treat them all if that is your approach.

3) The mites as they hatch out with the final brood emerging after you break the bees brood, have no cells to enter. If you do not treat, they build up to a high level on the bees as they have nowhere to go. Once the queen starts laying again, and the first wave of brood is about to be capped, the mites overload the cells. This is very unnatural for the mites and they overburden the capability of the larvae to feed and sustain these large numbers of mites. The pressure for bees to clean out infected cells (hygienic behavior) is increased and cells are cleaned out at higher levels.

4) Confining the queen onto drone comb for the first cycle after a brood break captures most mites. Very effective.

5) The whole process of splitting, requeening, stopping the brood, confining the queen, triggers grooming and other beneficial behavior. Just opening the hive increases mite drop. Do this in spring with low mite counts.....and what is the benefit? Not much. Do this midsummer as mites increase (when most beekeeper are ignoring their hives after a long season and high temps) and the benefit is increased.

I think the approach, and other details are the small points that add up. Simply confining the queen for some magical period, and thinking that mite cycles will be inhibited, and some magic makes mites disappear, is not what goes on.

It's like the saying..."If you split a hive, you will lower the mites in the hive". Say what? Impossible. On a mite per bee ratio, no decrease will be seen. Sure by removing half the bees (and half the mites) there will remain less mites in the original hive. But the mite per bee ratio remains the same.

No brood break alone decreases mite pressure. But through the act of breaking the brood cycle, it changes the dynamics of the bees, puts you in a position to easily treat them, and has other beneficial impacts. But the simple act of caging a queen as a mite control IPM approach is missing the point and not fully understanding what in happening in the hive.

[Brian D. Bray]

Russians, and to some extent Carnolians, provide their own brood dearths. 
A post swarm period gives a brood dearth of up to 14 days.
A manipulated dearth can last up to 23 days.
The Drone cell method of mite control is an added component worth using.
A hive that induces its own dearth will do so during a heavy flow.  The bees begin working a flower that is in plentiful supply (like the blackberry) and about a week into the flow the queen will reduce her laying and allow the worker bees to back fill the brood chamber while they process the nectar since more combs are necessary then.  This reduced brood area forces the mites from the newly hatched young onto the backs of the adult bees, many being active foragers, where the mite is frequently dislodged during forage.  Since ther is a large population prior to the honey flow there are lots of adults for the mites to attach to.  The more foragers, the less mites remain in the hive after any given day of forage.
Once the honey flow is over, and the nectar processing cells are returned to brood cells the hive builds its population back up but with a smaller mite load for the hive as a whole.

The problem with Italian bees, and some of their hybrids, is that they don't reduce the utilize a brood dearth but keep building up during a flow.  The brood dearth as the added advantage of a reduced colony population at the end of a flow so that more honey is placed in stores and not consumed by an overly large popoulation of bees.  In that way they can remain a smaller colony size if their is long periods between flows or if it's towards the end of summer.

[Michael Bush]

>So varroa only lay in open cells in which an egg is present, correct?  Before the cell has been capped, correct?

Sort of, not an egg, but the larvae just before it's capped.

>And a break in the honey bee brood cycle would/should have some effect on the population of varroa, correct?  As long as there are no new eggs in open cells for a period of time?

Of course.  If you want to do this with little impact on honey production or even an increase in honey production this should be done two weeks before the main flow.  At the latest just at the start of the main flow.  That way it frees up bees to forage instead of rearing brood that won't be useful for the main flow.

>So, could a person remove the queen from the hive for a period of time during the spring or summer months so that a break in the brood cycle occurs, thereby also breaking the cycle at least temporarily of Varroa.  Then could one place the queen back into the same hive which was queenless for that period of time?

It's simpler to just let them raise a new queen, which they will do whether you like it or not, which will give you the break you need and you won't have  to put her back.

>And here is where I need the experienced beeks to chime in...
>How long of a break in the brood cycle needs to occur for their to be a positive effect or lessening effect on the population of varroa within the hive?

The amount of time to raise a queen is, IMO, perfect.  That will take about 24 to 30 days.

>What time of the season would be the best time to try this?

Two weeks before the main flow.

>Would this even work?  Would it have any effect on varroa populations?

It  will have an effect if you have Varroa issues.

>What I was thinking was that if I could find the queen I would take her and some nurse bees and place her in a mini-nuc or similar for a period of time and then after that period of time is up, reintroduce her to the original hive.

No need.  They will have a new queen by then.

>I suppose that if the queen was out of the hive for too long, then they will start supersedure cells or a person would get a laying worker, and so on and so forth.

They would start rearing a new  one as soon as you remove her.

>What are your thoughts?

I have not had a need  for this.  I haven't had Varroa issues since regressing.  But if you insist on raising bees on large cell comb it is one more strategy that could help.

http://bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm
http://bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm

[joebrown]

There is a video on youtube called "Honey Bee Blues". There is a link on Hive Tracks Facebook page. I cannot post a link from this computer. The video is about 50 minutes long. It follows the guy who discovered Varroa Destructor. I did not know much about varroa until I watched that video! It is very informative and I would highly suggest that video to anyone who would like to learn a little more about varroa! Who better to teach you than the guy who discovered it in the first place!

[Midwest WI]

Thanks to everyone that posted here.  Very good information was shared and I'm going to give it a lot more thought.  Thanks again.