Varroa Infestation, Disturbing

biggraham610 · May 30, 2014, 03:18:13 PM

Is there any saving this hive? History, Hive swarmed, lots of queen cells hatched, Tons of Drones. The last of the drones are emerging. There are 50/50 drones to Bees. No Queen. Is it worth treating? Has it gone too far? There is no brood. Are the frames tainted? There were about 5 frames packed with nectar and honey and pollen. Can I Open feed that to my other bees? Any advice would be helpful. I have had no dealings with mites in the past. If I do treat, I will probably try and just combine what bees are left. I dunno. At least the others seem to be doing ok. My Open Mated Queen that returned is laying like mad.....G..... :chop:

biggraham610 · May 30, 2014, 04:42:50 PM

I got to go out of town, leaving at 5 be back sunday. Put the Honey, Nectar, Frames in the freezer. Dont know what else to do. Havent ever treated, didnt want to, but have some Apivar on hand, Guess if I dont hear back, I will flip a coin. Just wondering if with the brood break, there will be no mite eggs, Screw it, I will drop the strips and combine whats left later. At least the blood sucking bastards will be dead. :chop:

Joe D · May 30, 2014, 11:36:23 PM

It does look like you have plenty. I have never had to treat for them either, yet anyway. I have heard of the different treatments, but I done remember which you use or when for sure. If I have the Apivar I would read the directions and treat before loosing the hive. Good luck

Joe

Better.to.Bee.than.not · May 31, 2014, 05:07:03 AM

I'd probably remove the queen to break the egg laying cycle, let them make another, and in the meantime dust with powdered sugar, then after 3 days, then every 7 days for a month, until the new queen is ready to lay again. also cleaning your hive, and especially the bottom board and swapping out boxes with ones that are clean myself. That will hopefully break the mite buildup at least.
you can do a non destructive check on mite #'s by dusting with powdered sugar also, to see in what trouble you are really at. It is still early in the year, and at least for here, mites are not even close to their max densities yet. managing them now or within the next tweo months, prevents them from over running the hives in the fall/winter.

TenshiB · May 31, 2014, 07:01:42 AM

I've used the douse method with 1:1 sugar water, add Pro-Health (what I use) or Honey-B-Healthy to the "treatment" dose.. One quart of this mix will treat around 3 large colonies.. You literally take about a 3rd of a quart and pour it straight onto the topbars of the frames that contain the broodnest/most bees.

The mites can't stand it in my experience(s). We had a top-bar-hive that had the EXACT thing happen earlier in the year with the swarming/giant drone numbers which resulted in an explosion of mites and then, last weekend, we found tons of dead bees and plenty others with what appears to have been a type of paralysis virus (indicative of mites).. I shook all the bees that were on the combs off into a 5 gal bucket (could not find the queen), vacuumed out all the dead/dying/trembling bees, and then thoroughly doused the bees in the bucket with a light sugar water mix that had a high dose of Pro-Health (what I use in my spray bottle), and finally I dumped the bucket bees back into the TBH..

We walked away from that hive expecting them to dwindle and die off but knowing we at least tried.

Checked them just yesterday and the traffic at the entrance looked good considering.. Once we opened them up, the bees inside looked normal, acted normal, and, By-God there she was! The queen, in all her Cordovan glory! She was either very well hidden or got shook into the bucket with the rest of the sad lot that day last weekend! But she was there and laying eggs now!

Don't write your bees off too soon. :-D

BeeDog · June 01, 2014, 07:40:13 AM

50% Drones and 50% Worker Bee colony is not worth saving. But if you want to save that colony let them be queenless for a month, after a month re-queen the hive, by then hopefully the mites are gone.

GLOCK · June 01, 2014, 09:36:49 AM

OAV works great some thing to look into .
Better do some thing your bee's don't look good.

alfred · June 01, 2014, 09:41:05 AM

Yea, Oxalic acid vapor will knock them down quick.

TenshiB · June 01, 2014, 10:11:54 AM

Do the oxalic vapors hurt the bees at all? Or is there an easy-enough way to just give the deadly dose to the little hemolymph goblins?

GLOCK · June 01, 2014, 01:42:19 PM

Quote from: TenshiB on June 01, 2014, 10:11:54 AM
Do the oxalic vapors hurt the bees at all? Or is there an easy-enough way to just give the deadly dose to the little hemolymph goblins?

I used OAV in the fall of last year knocked the mite load why down I didn't lose any bee's to VARROA last year and I did alcohol wash on a hive a week ago that was brood less {supersedure} to see if I had many mites after winter and there was no mites in the alcohol wash so I give OAV a thumbs up.
OAV did not hurt my bee's at all but it sure did kick VARROAS butt!
This is a drop from a hive after I treat with OAV this hive dropped 1000s
The hive looked like this before I treated

And then after I had treated it looked like this.

This is from the first treatment I did the total of 3.

biggraham610 · June 01, 2014, 09:50:38 PM

I have an unopened pack of Apivar, I think I will dose them tommorrow, and take it from there. With only open cells, maybe I will get a good kill and can try and introduce a queen or try and let them raise one. We shall see. Thanks all. G :chop:

Wolfer · June 02, 2014, 09:08:58 PM

I'm confused. It happens often.
In the OP you stated the hive had no queen. Bottom line say your open mated queen is laying like mad.
Are these in different hives?

As I understand it a brood break doesn't kill mites until the new queen starts laying. Once your swarm cell starts laying your mite problem may go away.
Woody Roberts

OldMech · June 02, 2014, 11:10:00 PM

I have stopped using anything but OAV. As Glock said, it works, and leaves no problems behind like many of the other treatments do. I asked the state apiarian about approval for OAV, he said flat out, it takes money to get treatments approved, and there is no money in OAV so I doubt it ever WILL be approved..
I treat with OAV three times in spring per hive, one week apart, and then do the same thing again come August. I pilled about 200 drone cells apart a week ago, and found ONE mite. I have not treated with Hopguard or anything else in a couple of years. I have seen no adverse reaction to the OAV in any way. No effect on brood or bees, but there are very few mites. I use the Varrox Vaporizer, and could NOT be more pleased.

BigGraham;
If that hive was mine I would probably combine it, and then do a split from it to nucs for over wintering in early July.
If you want to save it, treat it for mites (OAV) twice, a week apart, with no brood the mites will be decimated. Put a queen in after the first treatment. She has bees and comb, the hive will recover quickly and should be ready for winter. You may have to fall feed depending on how prolific the new queen is. Just my nickel's worth of advice.

biggraham610 · June 03, 2014, 12:15:03 AM

Quote from: Wolfer on June 02, 2014, 09:08:58 PM
I'm confused. It happens often.
In the OP you stated the hive had no queen. Bottom line say your open mated queen is laying like mad.
Are these in different hives?

As I understand it a brood break doesn't kill mites until the new queen starts laying. Once your swarm cell starts laying your mite problem may go away.
Woody Roberts

Sorry Woody, yeah, 2 different hives I was looking for a bright spot. The swarm queen showed up. Treated the infected hive going to give them a frame of open brood when I go back in in a few days if I see no sign the queen has returned mated and laying. G :chop:

biggraham610 · June 03, 2014, 12:19:50 AM

Quote from: OldMech on June 02, 2014, 11:10:00 PM

I have stopped using anything but OAV. As Glock said, it works, and leaves no problems behind like many of the other treatments do. I asked the state apiarian about approval for OAV, he said flat out, it takes money to get treatments approved, and there is no money in OAV so I doubt it ever WILL be approved..
I treat with OAV three times in spring per hive, one week apart, and then do the same thing again come August. I pilled about 200 drone cells apart a week ago, and found ONE mite. I have not treated with Hopguard or anything else in a couple of years. I have seen no adverse reaction to the OAV in any way. No effect on brood or bees, but there are very few mites. I use the Varrox Vaporizer, and could NOT be more pleased.

BigGraham;
If that hive was mine I would probably combine it, and then do a split from it to nucs for over wintering in early July.
If you want to save it, treat it for mites (OAV) twice, a week apart, with no brood the mites will be decimated. Put a queen in after the first treatment. She has bees and comb, the hive will recover quickly and should be ready for winter. You may have to fall feed depending on how prolific the new queen is. Just my nickel's worth of advice.

Thanks alot for the advice. I had unopened apivar on hand so thats what I used. Like you say, with all open cells and nothing presently laying, I am looking for a strong kill. I am going to heed yours and Glocks advice though on the OAV for future use when I need it. Thanks again for the advice to all that offerred. G :chop: