# V-Mites



## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

CheckMite, the heroin of treatments. I'd stay far away from this stuff.


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## Hokie Bee Daddy (Apr 1, 2011)

As a relative newbee too I can say this has been the most confusing thing about beekeeping for me. What to apply and when to apply it. I've also learned that natural is in the eye of the beholder. 

I've used Mite Away Quick Strips with good results. They can be used with supers on and don't contaminate the honey or the comb like CheckMite will. I have heard that Apiguard, which is a thyme oil gel, is good also.


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## Foreststalker (Jan 29, 2012)

I won't lie I am confused to. There are SO many mite treatments and "times" to use it. Very confusing. I will check out the Mite Away thanks!


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## Foreststalker (Jan 29, 2012)

Barry said:


> CheckMite, the heroin of treatments. I'd stay far away from this stuff.


Thanks Barry I can assure you I will.


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## Riverratbees (Feb 10, 2010)

don't treat them for 2 weeks. Then get a 100 bees and put them in a jar and add teaspoon of powdered sugar and roll the jar til the bees are coated thourghly then let the bees walk out and fly off bees little white ghost bees flying around then dump the contents out on a table and count how many mites you have. Example say you find 20 mites you then know your bees have 20% mites at that time you can treat with powdered sugar. The bee get some food and the mites fall off. If I have say less than 10 mites I don't worry about it. More than 10 powder them and if it doesn't get any better I replace my queen I don't treat my bees with any chemicals etc. My rule of thumb if you can't put it in your mouth why do something to them you won't due to yourself. I am firm believer hygenic bees are the way to go makes them stronger and healthier. That is my opinion.


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## Roger Pell (Apr 29, 2010)

Take a look at this video where Don 'The FatBeeMan' Kuchenmeister demonstrates fogging with mineral oil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcy-cozD7VQ


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## turboterry544 (May 29, 2009)

PLEASE PLEASE take the money u were going to spend on chemicals etc and get some good Queens, this is were new guy's fall off the boat. russellapiaries.com VSH Queens is good to run,Tim at HoneyRunApiaries.com give him a call 419-371-1742


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## Jon F (Jun 7, 2011)

Riverratbees said:


> don't treat them for 2 weeks. Then get a 100 bees and put them in a jar and add teaspoon of powdered sugar and roll the jar til the bees are coated thourghly then let the bees walk out and fly off bees little white ghost bees flying around then dump the contents out on a table and count how many mites you have.
> 
> How do you count out exactly 100 bees? Im not trying to be smart, im asking a serious question.
> Ive never treated my current hives with ANYTHING and they are in very good health and very productive.


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

My recommended steps for a Newbee re varroa:

1. Get queens from a breeders who promotes VSH trait, is in the Russian Bee Breeders program, and/or does not treat for varroa. Good genetics is the key. I personally have tried Russians and prefer Italians, but I keep bees in the city limits, and I want my bees to be built up enough to start storing nectar when hollies bloom. You may have a different situation. My point is that you need to find a combination of good genetics for varroa and suitability to your specific situation. There are various sorts of varroa resistant bees available, and some of them are based on Italian genetics. 

2. Consider using non-chemical methods, such powdered sugar dusting and drone comb removal. There is disagreement whether powdered sugar dusting works. There is little doubt that drone comb removal works well, if done properly. (I do not recemmend small/natural cell to a rank beginner, and there is great dispute about whether those work. My view is that, whether or not small/natural cell works, a rank beginner does not need to mess around with regressing bees. Others will disagree. 

3. If you need to treat for mites, then do it. There are a lot of people on here who are anti-treatment, and they are entitled to their opinions. However, you can't learn to keep bees with dead bees. Don't feel like a criminal because you want to keep your hives alive. For now anyway, ignore the chemical-free camp.

4. That being said, only treat if needed. If you follow the foregoing advice, there is a good chance you won't need to treat. Learn to monitor for mites, either using a sticky board or sugar roll method. I would treat using sugar roll early in the year if you count 3 mites, and late in the year if you count 10 (using one cup of bees and 2 teaspoons powdered sugar). I would treat using a sticky board if there are 20 mites per day early in the year or 50 later in the year (these numbers are mites/24 hours). These treatment threshholds are made up and somewhat arbitrary. However, if you go looking for clear treatment threshhold numbers, you'll find that they do not exist. 

5. If and only if mites reach a treatment threshold, I would treat them with Apiguard, if that is an option (no supers on and the temperature is right). I have tried both Apiguard and MAQS, and the bees tolerate Apiguard much better. If I were a bee (and I am not) I would prefer to deal with Apiguard in my hive for a month rather than suffer the first three days of a MAQS treatment. I also would look into Hopguard, which may ultimately be better than the other options, but I have not used it myself and therefore won't recommend it. (I actually sent off a letter to my State Ag Dept. yesterday as part of an effort to get Hopguard approved in Oklahoma, and I have one hive that could use a treatment right now. I will use Hopguard to see how it works when Hopguard gets approved for my state.) Also, I recently heard that somebody is trying to get an Amitraz-based treatment approved. The reality is that Amitraz is widely used by commercial beeks, although its not legal here (but is legal in parts of Europe). That may provide a reasonable option if approved. You could also look into Oxalic acid trickling in winter, which is also a very good option, but not approved. Take a look at Randy Oliver's site (Google "scientific beekeeping") for a discussion of all sorts of treatment options. 

6. If you need to treat a hive, then, IMO, you should requeen it, once again, with varroa-resistant stock. Your prior varroa-resistant stock was not getting the job done. The practical effect of this is to get most of the benefits of a "live and let die" method without the hive dying.

7. In my opinion, you should not use Apistan (Fluvalinate) or Coumaphos (Checkmite). The reality is that Fluvalinate is not a particularly poisonous substance for mammals (it is less toxic to mammals than thymol). However, both of these products have resistance issues, and both build up in honeycomb. Checkmite is much more toxic than any of the other options. I have no idea how that stuff got approved for use in beehives as a miticide, but it did. The only use of Coumaphos that I would even consider to be within the realm of something I might even think about doing (and then I would come up with something else) is using it inside of a small hive beetle trap that bees could not get to. (Once again, then I'd go get a hive beetle trap that does not use any poison).

8. Have fun, and remember that you learn from your problems, so they are actuall "learning opportunities."

Neil


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## Foreststalker (Jan 29, 2012)

Thanks Neil that was very informative and helpful. If you do use Hopguard I would love to know your thoughts on it.

Sharon


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Jon F said:


> Riverratbees said:
> 
> 
> > How do you count out exactly 100 bees? Im not trying to be smart, im asking a serious question.
> ...


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## throrope (Dec 18, 2008)

Jon F said:


> How do you count out exactly 100 bees?


Here's what I was looking for: 

agdev.anr.udel.edu/maarec/

Not only will you find a wealth of information, under Educational Resources, PowerPoints you can find great instruction on sampling for mites that references 300 bees per 1/2 cup.

agdev.anr.udel.edu/maarec/educational-resources/powerpoints/

Hope this helps


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## Hokie Bee Daddy (Apr 1, 2011)

Neil, very good advice above and thank you for taking the time to put it in writing. The one thing that I've given up on though is relying on queens and genetics to do the job. I had one hive last year that superceded three times (I'm sure one of the three was due to a MAQ's treatment). At that rate of supercedure I can't depend upon the queen having VSH genetics for long. If that were a new VSH queen in the spring, the queen that ended the season would only have 1/4 of the original queen's genetics (omitting the MAQ's related supercedure). From what I've read here and other places, varroa mites have led to lower quality drones and therefore lower quality mated queens which leads to the greater supercedure rate we're seeing today. 

Also, I've discounted all of the testing that goes on to check mite counts. I've not treated hives only to lose treated hives next door after the un-treated ones died out. When a hive dies the others rob what's left and the varroa hitch a ride to a new home during the robbing. From this point forward I will always treat every hive in an apiary at once regardless of the mite loads.

As you can probably tell, what I've been doing has not worked. I had a peak hive count last year of 8 and it looks like I will come out of winter with only three. This year I've decided to treat on a schedule. I plan to treat all hives with MAQ's in April and Apigard in August. I'm looking forward to a better 2012.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Here is an overview of the enemies:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm

Some things you can do:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm

More details on why:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm

Why Varroa treatments often fail:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesvarroatreatments.htm

The other reason they fail is the mites have built up a resistance to Apistan and CheckMite, so the odds of harming the bees is higher than the odds of harming the mites...

Sometimes choices are overwelming:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesoptions.htm


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

You're welcome.

To a large extent, decisions of whether to treat at all and how/when to do it present judgment calls. The difficulty for a new beekeeper is that there is a basic lack of experience, so it is impossible to make judgment calls. What I outlined has a good chance of keeping hives alive long enough to learn and develop judgment.

On the decision of whether to treat all hives or only the ones that need it, I agree that my advice does not provide the most assurance of wiping out mites. However, a key is to remember that you cannot do one mite test a year and know what is happening in your hives. You need to check repeatedly. Also, just because you lose a hive does not mean varroa, or any pest, was responsible.

Another consideration for a beekeeper is time. I have a more than full-time job, two kids with activities, family obligations, etc. It is sometimes difficult to do what needs to be done. In the real world, that makes options like drone comb removal (which has strict timing requirements) hard for me to pull off. Also, if you as a beeekeeper don't have time to monitor mite numbers, then treating every hive at once may be the best for you. In my experience, thymol treatments (Apigaurd) frankly does not appear to do any real harm to the hive. Hives infested with varroa obviously look better even before the treatment is over. 

One of my real concerns for new beekeepers is that they not get frustrated, and it is frustrating for hives to crash before you harvest a drop of honey.


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## Foreststalker (Jan 29, 2012)

I have been reading about the mites and treatments for days. I have to admit it's discouraging.


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

It should not be discouraging. 

As beekeepers, especially on sites like this, we talk about mites far out of proportion to their relationship to what we actually do as beekeepers. If beekeeping were limited to dealing with mites, I don't think anybody would keep bees at all. The vast majority of the beekeeping experience involves other, more interesting and fulfilling activities. Beekeeping is mostly just learning to manage bees and appreciate them as critters. In fact, the beauty of a non-treatment approach (although I do not recommend it for beginners and probably will not adopt it myself anytime soon) is that it gets the beekeeper back to just keeping bees, which is the fun part. 

Figuring out what you want to do to deal with mites can be daunting. However, doing what you decide to do is no big deal.


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## camero7 (Sep 21, 2009)

Lots of good info here:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-Destructor-Paper&highlight=varroa+destructor


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

I'll try to help simplify this for you. Apiguard is probably as easy, bee friendly and user friendly as it comes. Be sure to follow all directions. You'll need some sort of rim or an empty super to provide space for the tray under the inner cover. You can treat either late march and late july or early august or late may and late september. (Your hive will be storing honey from early april to mid to late may.) If you do that your bees will be okay. Be sure to feed some during nectar dearth's in July and august.


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## Foreststalker (Jan 29, 2012)

Tim B said:


> I'll try to help simplify this for you. Apiguard is probably as easy, bee friendly and user friendly as it comes. Be sure to follow all directions. You'll need some sort of rim or an empty super to provide space for the tray under the inner cover. You can treat either late march and late july or early august or late may and late september. (Your hive will be storing honey from early april to mid to late may.) If you do that your bees will be okay. Be sure to feed some during nectar dearth's in July and august.


Thanks Tim. Do I need to take my honey super off when I treat? And how best do I store it until the treatment is over.


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## Tim B (Apr 16, 2009)

The label recommends that apiguard be applied with supers off (unless you are using a super w/o frames as the temporary spacer above the apiguard tray). If you treat in early march it will be before you will have placed supers on. Generally in middle georgia the early nectar flow will end as the privett bloom ends which is typically mid may. Pull your supers then and treat then replace afterward in case there is a sumac or sourwood flow. Generally there isn't enough surplus nectar Mid July-sept in middle georgia to need supers unless you have hives on cotton. In the age of hive beetles it is better to have less places for them to hide by mid to late summer anyway.


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## Baldursson (Nov 22, 2011)

Question on powdered sugar since that is a big part of a lot of peoples treatments. I know commercial PS contaiins corn starch to keep it flowing smoothly and not absorb water. Has anyone ever ground your own PS from granulated table sugar. Is the effort not worth the harm from the corn starch?


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

In my opinion, it's definitely not worth the effort.


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