# varroa control with sbb and powdered sugar



## B. Haning (Sep 14, 2007)

Does a single deep broodnest allow for better mite drop than 2 or 3 mediums?
Seems like the frames would need to be perfectly aligned vertically to allow mites to fall thru the sbb. When dusting a 3 medium broodnest with powdered sugar should I break the hive down and dust each body separately?


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## Tuttle (Jul 4, 2009)

I use all deeps and when I use powered sugar usually for mite drop counts I usually sugar the 2nd story brood nest then break it off and do the frist one down below. I would assume this is how you would do it for mediums also.


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

It helps to work each box separately. Be careful when you re-assemble. Sugar makes it hard to see the queen and it's easy to crush her. I put a screen on the box, drop the sugar, brush it through the screen, smoke them through the screen and then pull the screen just before putting a box back on top.


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## B. Haning (Sep 14, 2007)

Thanks for the advice.


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## Axtmann (Dec 29, 2002)

Make sure your treat your hives with a “working mite treatment” beside the sugar. Playing with sugar gives you an idea that you have mites in your colonies but doesn’t work as a mite treatment. I call it hoax and not a treatment that helps your bees to survive.

If someone believes in sugar he should be sure that he has enough hives to start again the next season without buying package bees.

It would be interesting to hear how many beekeepers lost there bees when treating only with sugar. Please tell us how it works for you and whether you would recommend it as the ONLY treatment against Varroa mites.


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## B. Haning (Sep 14, 2007)

I have 2 hives headed by queens I bought as "mite resistant" queens. They are fall queens from 2007 and have only had occasional dustings with powdered sugar. So I don't know if the sbb and dusting helps or it is the genetics of the bees. They seem to be some sort of russian or carniolan cross. I ordered more mite resistant queens (purvis brothers, NWC, Bjorn) this year so I haven't had them long enough to see if the mites will kill them. Time will tell.


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## rwlaw (May 4, 2009)

Treated my Italians w/ powdered sugar and tea tree oil syrup because of the warm weather (formic acid and in the eighties) result? Deformed wing virus and very little drop in the mite pop. Put the hive down rather than see em suffer. 
Maybe powdered sugar to see what the mite drop is, but I'll never use it as a treatment again.


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## hoodswoods (May 15, 2009)

RW - At what point did you give up on that hive with 'Deformed wing virus'? Is it your experience that once it manifests itself, regardless of the levels/percentage, the hive is doomed?

I hope that this doesn't stir up as much activity as I got involved in on the 4.9 thread, and I'm comming/continuing to realize how complicated this issue is.

Since I'm on LC, and the jury is out re the LC/SC debate, I have little choice this first year. I understand that PS is not a cure, but MAYBE only a short-term treatment. I have avoided chemicals, but I believe in the swine flu vacination.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

PS works when mite infestation is low in spring and in summer, if you use it often.
You MUST ALWAYS monitor mite level as you use it. If mite level increases above unacceptable levels (the levels vary by month), you need to do something different than the PS. If you dont do anything (monitor or control) and wait until mite levels are high (50 or more), its too late for PS. You need some other kind of control (depending on time of season). 

PS and deformed wings are NOT a good combination. Deformed wings this time of year means mites were NOT controlled adequately AND early enough in the season.
A colony w/ DW usually (not always) is a lost cause. You can treat and treat, and maybe "cure" the DW, but the bees remaining are weak (and old) and will not live long. Hive "may" make it through winter, but come spring you'll still have a "poor" hive. One thats not likely to build-up like it should. So if you have lots of DW bees and bee population is low, and its late in the season, why spend time and money treating?


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## jesuslives31548 (May 10, 2008)

I have 2 hives headed by queens I bought as "mite resistant" queens. 

I guess I will never understand how you breed a queen bee that is mite resistant. If someone could explain this is easy terminology It would be great. Its almost like the National queen bee producers logo for alot of companies. "mite resistant". I will probley upset a few with that statement but....


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

I had a DW hive a few years ago. Late in the season and I thought it was a goner. I only had Apistan so I used it. Buttoned up the hive for the winter and hoped for the best. Spring came and I had a huge build up. So much so that I split the hive. Somewhere late that summer I lost the queen. Once I figured out what was going on, I requeened but the hive never built up in time for the fall/winter. It was gone in December. Not sure if DW had something to do with it or not. In other words, was the build up that let me split the hive just good luck or did the DW condition become "controlled"? That's my experience.

As far as sugar dusting goes, I'll add my take as I have before. Powdered sugar DOES drop mites. It MAY not drop enough to be your only treatment and, in my experience, it never drops enough to be your only treatment. PS should be part of a larger and longer IPM plan. Measurement (drop counts) is crucial. With winter coming, now is a good time to start deciding what next years regimen will be. Are you going to be ONLY natural when it comes to treating? Natural up to a point? Chemical all the way? Once you decide, you can time your treatment to your seasons...accommodating the flow or at least the predicted flow. 

There are a lot of beekeepers who decided on only one method only. They're 100% successful with that method when it works. The trick is to approach each issue from many angles.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

I agree w/ Ravenseye's "treatment suggestions. 

Maybe ALL of us can have his experience w/ DW someday


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## rwlaw (May 4, 2009)

At what point did you give up on that hive with 'Deformed wing virus'?
It was a combination of things, late in the season, mites, poor brood pattern and then at least seeing ten or more bees around and in the hive w/ swizzle sticks for wings every day. I figured I had hit the point of diminshing returns.
It sucked mondo to put the hive down as they had produced honey and plenty of it, but they also had a mite population that took off like a scalded cat.
There's two things I found out SBB's are a must have and that first year hives won't have a mite problem is BS!


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

>first year hives won't have a mite problem is BS . . .
IMO, first year PACKAGE hives have at best about a 50/50 chance (maybe less).
If there are no problems, things SEEM to be OK. Most Beekeepers start down the path of complacency and denial. But when mite problems arise the first year, colonies often collapse.


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## hoodswoods (May 15, 2009)

Since this is my first-year hive, the statement about 1'st year hives not having a mite issue is, fortunately, not MY BS, but is.

I have no recourse other than to attempt to retrieve my hive (kind of like putting down your first pet).

Maybe I need to move to 4.9, mite-resistant (?) queens and chemical-free - the threads are raving about the success stories.

We're not going to stop, as a species, tweaking the yearly flu vacine to prevent xxx-number of deaths, or stop corn or soybeen genetic modification to prevent those crops failures - are bees a similar commodity? (Yea, I know 1 in 3 bites).

I haven't heard of a grizzle bear-resistant human - how does that work?

Do we consider ourselves as part of the evolutionary solution, or the problem? We can't reach au natural, even at 98% - but what is the cost for 100% There are a lot of those on the threads that support 100% natural, others that have been there and tried that... Is the regression theory going to stop the sun from toasting us in the future, or are we going to be some place far away?

We're intelligent, we can eventually figure this out, (or nature will for us) but immediately is my concern - if I can save the colony for another day, I'll try - even if it takes a few years - on their prodgeny, or a new batch.

Ravenseye:

You said that "Somewhere late that summer I lost the queen. Once I figured out what was going on, I requeened but the hive never built up in time for the fall/winter. It was gone in December. Not sure if DW had something to do with it or not. In other words, was the build up that let me split the hive just good luck or did the DW condition become "controlled"? That's my experience."

Do you feel that if you had requeened earlier, or did something to build up the hive earlier (ie a package...) would the results have been different?


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

Yes, I should have been watching more closely for signs of a queenless hive. I had many work issues this year and hadn't been as careful as I needed to be. Once I found that the hive was not queenright, I tried a frame of green brood in hopes that they'd raise their own. They didn't. I finally gave them a queen very late in the season and she was laying fine but not for long. I believe she shut down and they dwindled in short order. I retrospect, a combine might have been a better solution. You know...take your losses in the fall....


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## RedDave (Apr 5, 2010)

Question, Since I've never used powered sugar. Do the bees eat the sugar or just use it to clean the mites off?


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## fafrd (Aug 22, 2009)

RedDave,

In my experience, only about half of the powdered sugar falls to the bottom board within the first hour of dusting, so the bees are eating a substantial portion of it. I have also seen cells filled with white powdered sugar (though I have only noticed this after several days of intensive daily dusting).

In response to the original question, powdered sugar alone can be used to save a hive with advanced PMS including DWV, at least in milder climates such as what I have here in Northern California. Dusting needs to be done daily over a period of 5-7 days with all brood removed. In the case of my hive, I left the brood in, which meant I had to dust 7 days straight three times over the course of 5 weeks to rid the hive of all of the mites. It's not practical for a commercial operation and even for the hobbiest, it is borderline in terms of how much work and trouble it is, but it _does_ work. My hive had initial 1-hour PS dusting drops in the 100's and by the time I was done, the average over the final three days was down to 2. The hive has dwindled considerably and is now no more than a nuc, but it is recovering and I expect it to back to at least a full deep by the spring (maybe only because of my mild climate).

The trick to dusting is to realize that dusting only knocks off about 50% of the phoretic mites and leaves the foundress mites breeding in the capped brood untouched. Dusting once a week is a waste of time, because by the next day, all the mites that you knocked down with dusting will be replaced with new emerging mites from the capped brood. At best, dusting once a week can offset the natual growth of the mite population and can be used to keep the mite levels in check within a hive that only has a few mites, but weekly duting will not really reduce the mite population at all (and from that point of view, I agree that weekly dusting with PS is not a 'treatment').

By removing all of the brood, only phoretic mites remain in the hive, and by dusting with PS every day for 5 days, the number of phoeretic mites will be reduced to about 1/32nd of the original infestation level (knocking off 1/2 of the remainder each day for 5 days). Dusting 7 days straight wll reduce the number of phoretic mites to about 1/128th of the starting level.

Removing all brood for a week will set the hive back a bit, and an alternative approach is to make a split with all of the brood and wait for all of the brood to emerge while a new queen is getting established in the new split. Since the split will have no brood three weeks after it is established, it can be treated with 5-7 days of PS dusting and recombined with the parent hive, which will leave the resulting hive about where it would have been without this manipulation (but virtually mite free).

Having gone through this once, I hope to avoid it in the future by monitoring my mite levels more carefully during the spring and summer. I can say that any time I catch a swarm, I plan to treat it with daily dustings of PS until the mite levels are sufficiently low...

-fafrd


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