Too any Varroa I think?

Started by challenger, March 31, 2009, 09:20:18 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

challenger

I inspect my hives often and a few weeks ago saw some Varroa in a lot of drone brood that I broke apart while removing frames. I looked at a lot of other drone brood intentionally and there were Varroa on the vast majority. I sifted powdered sugar over the top bars and placed a sticky board under the screened bottom on 2 hives. After 24 hours I looked at the sticky boards and there were Varroa on them but not nearly enough to be alarmed about so I decided to let it ride. Now I am soon approaching our nectar flow and I am seeing Varroa crawling one a lot of the bees in the hives and it has me very concerned. I have a Apiguard type of treatment available but this would mean 18 days of treatment and I will need to put honey supers on in a week or two at the most so this 18 day treatment is out. Would I be well advised to take the frames out and treat each one-w-bees on them-w-powdered sugar. This would cover the bees a lot better than the way I initially did it and then I could do it a few more times to help stem the tide until the supers are off. I also just got some drone brood frames in and will put them in the hives but it will take a while before they have drone larvae in them.
Any advice is much appreciated.
Beekeeping for Chordoma. All proceeds donated to cancer research

Michael Bush

You could remove all the drone brood, use more powdered sugar....
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
-------------------
"Everything works if you let it."--James "Big Boy" Medlin