sugar shake

[pembroke]

I tried the sugar shake between the frames yesterday ,one cup per deep hive body. Lots of white bees and very noisy afterward. I checked the sticky board today with little results. Couldn't see mites for the sugar and other debris. Will try sticky board in a couple days for a better read. Any suggestion on this will be appreciated. Thanks. Pembroke

[tillie]

Can't tell from your description if you used a sifter or a screen to shake the powdered sugar - I've found that using a sifter makes for such small bits of sugar that you CAN see Varroa on the sticky board.  If the sugar is in clumps, it's harder to see anything on the board.

Linda T in Atlanta where sugar will be shaking tomorrow

[indypartridge]

I don't try to count mites in the sugar. I use a sticky board to monitor mite drop for a 24 hour period. If it climbs above the threshold (about 60), I'll treat with powered sugar 3 times, about a week apart. I'm looking to lower the 24-hour mite drop, not count the mites that I knocked off with powered sugar.

[tillie]

I'm confused. 

I thought the mites that end up on the sticky board after the powdered sugar shake mostly get there because the bees have groomed themselves to get rid of the sugar, thus knocking off the mites.  I don't expect the sugar to knock the mites off????   

So I do the shake and put a sticky board under the hive and check the count 24 hours later.  The mites are inevitably on the board with bits of bee, sugar, propolis, other hive debris.

Linda T

[Brian D. Bray]

The powdered sugar from a sugar shake acts like a dry grease--like graphite.  The powder loosens the hold of the mite on the bee.  Many of the mites will fall off at the time the powder is applied, more will fall off as the bees clean themself free of the dust.  However, once brood hatches, and, hence, more mites the hive is re-infected.  That is why a single application is discouraged and multiple applications over a specific period are recommened.  Applying the powdered sugar once a week for 3 or 4 weeks will usually knock down the number of mites to very low levels.
The best time to do the shakes is between the 1st and 2nd honey flows, which in my area means mid-june to mid-july.  Another series after labor day knocks the mites down enough for the bees to winter without a large infectation of mites.

[pembroke]

Tillie: I used the wife's sifter, and yes she was right there with me as I used it. So I gather that a treatment of sugar shakes once a week for a period of 4 wks will knock the stufffings out of the varroa for a while.  Yes??? Thanks for your response. Pembroke

[tillie]

Well, my good news is that after four sugar shakes over about a month, I pulled the sticky board out from under my weakened hive and only found three (3) mites.  Whoo hoo - this is after having so many in the hive that I saw them on both bees and larvae when I first opened the hives this spring as well as seeing results of Varroa in deformed wings and some k-wings (thanks Kawayanan for pointing them out).

Linda T relieved on this cool night in Atlanta

[annette]

I started my sugar treatments sort of late, due to having to split my hive and not wanting to disturb the new virgin queens for a few weeks. Now I did the sugar treatments last Thursday and the new hive had little but the old hive that I split had hundreds. So I will do the treatments every week until the count goes down.

My question is. It is supposed to start raining this week and so the choice is either do the treatment on Tuesday (which would be only 5 days since last treatment, or wait until the weekend or more, which would bring it to 10 to 12 days.) Should I wait until next week when the rain stops?? Or should I take the opportunity this week and do it again even though I just did it??

Hate disturbing the hive if unnecessary.

Thank you for the help
Annette

[tillie]

Brian D. Bray has said in earlier posts that to be effective in getting the bees to groom off the mites, you should do sugar shakes every 10 days for 30 days.  This allows new bees (with mites on them) to hatch and they then will groom themselves and knock the mites off. 

In effect, powdered sugar is not a treatment but a management tool because you are hoping 2 things will happen:

1.  The sugar will in application knock off some of the mites
2.  The bees will groom themselves and keep house and knock off more of the mites.

Hope that helps,

Linda T in Atlanta