# Please post your varroa mite count and information!



## AG Fresh (Jun 10, 2015)

Since everyone suggests that this is the time to treat for mites, I'm really curious about what everyone's mite counts were! Don't forget to tell us your counting method, the size of the hives you sampled, and when you did your sample!

Using SBB petroleum jelly coated inserts for 3-4 days at a time, I counted an average of 4-9 mites dropped per day on my large hives (double deeps plus supers). This was in the last week of August. 

I have Russian bees, which is why I hope the count was so low. I didn't treat this year, nor do I plan to. Crossing my fingers for good results in spring.

Please share your results!


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

Using a sugar shake, my highest count was 2 per hundred but the average overall was 1 per hundred. Several hives had none at all. I will use OAD in November. Mostly double deeps with a deep super with counts done this weekend.

Rusty

edited to add that most of my queens are open-mated F2 VSH Gold. The 3 hives with the zero mites are headed by 2014 F1 queens from Broke-T.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

We did not do the powdered sugar or alcohol for counting. I know I was suppose to do a mite count before applying mite killer, but I was seeing 10-20 mites per day at times on the bottom board. My friend JRG came over and installed two strips of Apivar in each of our hives. One hive has two double deeps, the other hive, a new split, had one deep. Here are the counts:

First week: 300-400 dead mites per day per hive
Second week: 300 dead mites per day per hive
Third week: 250 dead mites per day per hive
Fourth week: 120 dead in one hive, 60 dead in the other per day

I estimate 20,000 bees per hive.

I know very little about beekeeping, but I suspect this was a major mite infestation.

Hope this helps!


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## jsnider (Aug 12, 2014)

First year and started with 2 5 frame deep nucs. They are in 10 frame double deeps with 1 medium super. I made 2 walk away splits that are in double 5 frame deeps. I did sugar roll method last week of August on 3 of them and they all had 1 mite per 300 bees. I am in Cleveland Tennessee. I will check again in a few weeks. SHB are showing up though.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Since everyone suggests that this is the time to treat for mites

"Everyone" does not.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm#notreatments


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Since everyone does mite counts this time of the year, pray tell us what your mite counts are.
Johno


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Since everyone does mite counts this time of the year...

"Everyone" does not.

http://kirkwebster.com/2005scan2.pdf

"And now I have another terrible confession to make. Not one as bad and un-American as passing up short-term gain and investing in the future—but still horrible: I have never yet counted even a single sample of mites from any of my bees. I consider counting mites as a way of evaluating Varroa resistance to be fraught with all sorts of shortcomings and difficulties. It's very time consuming and hence the size of the apiary, the number of colonies tested, the gene pool, and the income available all start to shrink. It's also very easy for the results to be skewed by mites migrating from other colonies or bee yards. And it doesn't show which colonies are more resistant to secondary infections--a trait I consider very important."--Kirk Webster, ABJ April 2005, pg 314


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

So what do we have here, mite tolerant bees if mite counts are high or less virulent mites not carrying viruses or no mites at all. How will Mr Kirk Webster know if he does not even do mite counts on his hives. Does he have producing hives?
Johno


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

"It's also very easy for the results to be skewed by mites migrating from other colonies or bee yards. And it doesn't show which colonies are more resistant to secondary infections--a trait I consider very important."--Kirk Webster, ABJ April 2005, pg 314

a point that randy oliver is also careful to make. 

i'll take a few counts this fall out of curiosity and as a courtesy to some of the members of the forum who are interested. since i was fortunate enough to start with bees that already had demonstrated minimal losses off treatments and my losses have been low i'm looking more at hive longevity and productivity as indicators of which colonies to graft queens from. 

the counts i took last year were several times higher than some of the recommended treatment thresholds i've seen yet those colonies survived winter and were productive this year. what's weird is the hive with the highest might count last year (13.4%) was my strongest coming out of winter, yielded an early split, and is in position to yield 120+ lbs of honey with no feeding.

how many lbs. per hive did you average this year johno


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

A story of five hives.

Hive O, last year's survivor. VSH queen moved to a new nuc, the bees raised a daughter of hers. Hence, they had a brood break. Daughter promptly mated (probably with drones from Hive I) and laid a couple of frames of worker brood plus a full deep frame of drone brood, which I pulled when 80% capped. At this point I did a 2-day IPM board and found a grand total of 2 mites. No treatment for THESE bees.

Hive Z: Originally a mutt bee nuc, never was strong. In late June they dropped a lot of mites, leading to a sugar roll that produced 8% infestation (8 mites per 100 bees). Sheesh! But about that time the queen ran out of gas, and I pinched the old queen and requeened with a locally bred VSH queen unrelated to hive O. The bees were so weak they failed to dig completely thru her sugar plug, which I discovered after 10 days. With so little brood from the old queen, this seems to have made an effective brood break. The new queen is laying beautifully now. But erring on the side of caution, I put two MAQS in the hive this weekend. The bees buzzed a bit but carried on as if nothing unusual had happened. After 24 hours they dropped 6 mites ... evidently the earlier infestation had been dealt with, probably by the old bees nearly dying out.

Hive I: Probably Russians, but with no pedigree, the MAQS package had two doses, and what the heck, hive was dropping mites and the stuff expires. In went two strips. They hated it. This morning they were dumping dying immature bees/pupae and some larvae, probably several hundred. By afternoon they looked back to normal. They dropped 206 mites in 24 hours. That's not a lot for a formic acid treatment but we'll see what they accumulate over the week.

Nuc 1: The Grand Old Lady, mama bee from last year. Seems to be doing well, a nuc is kinda small to treat, they are proven VSH mite fighters. She's going into winter TF. Mind you, her hive was treated last August to diagnose her mysterious very high mite drop with tiny sugar roll numbers and the hive that was not treated failed.

Nuc 2: Daughter of the Grand Old Lady, presumably still VSH, maybe crossed with Russians. Creating the nuc should have been a very effective brood break. 

All are bring fed syrup, attempting to get 1-2 mediums of stores on top. O and I are starting on their second supers.

At the moment I have five colonies which seem happy and healthy. Ask me again next May and I'll know better if it worked.


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

johno said:


> Since everyone does mite counts this time of the year, pray tell us what your mite counts are.
> Johno


Now that was funny.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Now Square as a novice beekeeper I do not know all the answers, I just try to ask a few intelligent questions. I feel my number 1 priority is to keep my bees alive and producing, I have just completed my 5th season and I have increased my hive count from the four that I started with to 46 hives plus 12 nucs for overwintering. I have probably supplied about 80 nucs to area beekeepers and have doubled my honey yield over each year over the past 4 years . My yield this year averaged about 45lbs per hive, not so good but this is not a high yielding area. I try to base my beekeeping practice on proven facts and not so much on smoke and mirrors therefore I do not pay much attention to some practices where there are no records or facts to substantiate those practices
Johno
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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

nice job of growing your apiary johno. sounds like you've been more focused on making bees than making honey and there's nothing wrong with that. i'll bet those honey yields will grow as you get more supers drawn out.

i haven't been at this for too long myself but the one thing that really gets my attention is how different the experiences are from one operation to the next and in different parts of the country (world).

for this reason what can be a proven fact for me may not play out for you and vice versa. mite counts and treatment thresholds fall into that category. my opinion is that there's just too many variables at play for us to judge what others are doing or not doing relative to our own experiences.

on the other hand it seems to me that there is real opportunity in all that to grow the knowledge base. i.e. why the differences? what could we learn from them that might be applicable to the community at large? maybe it's asking too much for folks to get past rigorously defending this approach or that approach and having an intelligent conversation, i don't know.

anyway i appreciate the reply and i apologize for getting all philosophical on ya. best of luck to you with your bees.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Indeed. Tons of unanswered questions.

Mr. Bush had the best ... why do we depend so highly on low mite counts as our metric if the real goal is healthy bees? There are bees, as pointed out above, that can thrive even with high mite counts.

For bees that successfully lower mite counts on their own, what, exactly, are they doing? Leg biters are catching on. Russians and Africanized bees may be aggressive groomers.

But supposedly VSH bees are just good at sniffing out varroa-infested brood and culling it. Hence my confusion last year when the Grand Old Lady was first introduced. She's a couple of generations removed from pure-bred, crossed with local bees and probably a Russian or two. A few weeks later, as her daughters emerged, her drop rates increased, and kept increasing over the next month or so, reaching about 200/week. But a series of sugar rolls showed 0-2 counts, suggesting low infestation. So were her daughters exhibiting some additional anti-varroa trait? Grooming? Leg biting (so far have not seen it)?

Dunno what she did, but she survived the winter, and she's the one I'm breeding from. And that is probably the true metric: do they survive and produce?


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## psfred (Jul 16, 2011)

Did not do formal counts, but the swarm I caught in May has been dropping quite a few mites all summer. The other hives have been moderate, nothing too exciting on the sticky boards, and I didn't check my brother's hives.

However, since we've lost several hives to mites in the last couple years, we treated all of them, the six at my house a couple weeks ago and the four at my brother's last weekend. Didn't treat the second swarm he caught, it's too small (just a couple frames of bees).

Very large mite drop at my brother's. This is a good thing, as we have lost all our hives in the winter there. I've never lost on in the winter so far in five years of so, I kill mine off in the summer. Robbers, SHB, bad splits, lost queens, etc.

Still getting them up to weight, will be feeding quite a bit this fall as three of mine are still a medium short of what I want for them to have.

Peter


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## davidsbees (Feb 22, 2010)

I've been treating with EO'S so wanted to check mite levels so Thursday added my mite drop checker. Hive 1, 3 mites hive 2, 2 mites hive 3, 1 mite that's 3 days natural drop. Next added EO'S today will check mite drop on Tuesday


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## pskoskiewicz (Apr 14, 2014)

Alcohol wash, three hives. Two with 1% and the third with 0 mite count.

Side story - I used the technique described by Randy Oliver on his site (and at ABJ). *Do* pay attention to the instruction step about making sure that queen is not on the frames used to shake the bees for the wash. Guess what yours truly did? A horrible, rookie mistake, :-( I was curious about the bee counts in 1/2 cup that is used to scoop out the bees for the wash, so I collected all the bees from my washes. Nearly fainted when I found the queen on top of the first one. Since I had a microscope handy, I decided to take a look at her, since it's not every day that one can examine a dead queen. Couldn't get the focus until I pulled back and noticed that her abdomen was heaving. Took her into my hand and her legs started twitching. At this point I figured that if she were to get through this, the best treatment will be to put her back in the hive. I rushed outside, put her on the landing board and watched how the guard bees immediately surround her and dragged her in. Then they turned on me with vengence, deservedly, :-(

Long story short, a few days later I open the hive and on locate the queen on the second pulled frame. She was just walking around and deposited 5 times right in front of me - the eggs were clearly visible at the bottom of each cell. Whew. The experts on the BEE-L forum suggested that I likely got her drunk, but because I cut the alcohol in half (35%) and her size, she pulled through, though likely with a massive hangover the next day,  We will see what the offspring will be...

And the counts? 320 through 390. I didn't run my finger across the cup as Randy suggests, but still that's a lot of bees in 1/2 a cup.

Przemek, the almost queen killer,


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## pskoskiewicz (Apr 14, 2014)

It's not the mite counts per se that are indicative of trouble - it's the diseases (viruses) that they carry. The mite count is just a proxy - much easier to count mites than viruses. So it's reasonable to have a colony with a high mite count that pulls through. And also the opposite.

Anecdodal stories of survival with large mite counts aside, there's science behind why we must worry about varroa mites.

Przemek


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## AG Fresh (Jun 10, 2015)

That's a wild story Przemek! Once I dumped a bee out that had been floating in my beer for awhile. She was still hanging out on the banister where I had left her the next morning before eventually cleaning herself up and flying home. These girls love to party


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Square, as to honey yield, an old beekeeper from West Virginia moved into our area and was most disgusted with his yields and claimed that you are lucky to get any surplus honey at all in this area, so my yields are higher than average for the area. I find that the forage like clover seems to increase yearly due to the bee population and their pollination.
Johno


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood johno. this is another example of how locality can play a big role on results. we see a lot of posts questioning the feasibility of keeping bees off treatments with regard to loss rate, honey production, and workability. that is one reason i wanted to chronicle my experience for the year, but i recognize that there may be something unique to my location that allows for these results.

on honey production, turns out the dept of ag. statistics for where walt wright and myself happen to be keeping bees is about 50 lbs. honey harvest per hive. here's a link with the 2013 stats:

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/hony0315.pdf

your right, looks like virginia is down there in the lowest 10%.

walt has claimed that production can be doubled or better with effective swarm management. i am finding this to be the case here and don't appear to be noticing any deficit by managing off treatments.

you questioned whether or not kirk webster's bees were productive and to that i have no idea. i only wanted to provide an example of a case in which bees kept off treatments can be as productive or more than average.

my apologies to the op for straying off topic.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Neat paper! Funny that in the url the USDA spells it "hony" (hony0315.pdf).

We live in VA, have the apiary in WV. I notice their productions per hive swapped places between 2013 and 2014. From our luck this year, I suspect WV may be way down in 2015.

Both states tend to have short spring flows and a long midsummer dearth. Our WV location lacks goldenrod and so far we've not seen a good fall flow.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How will Mr Kirk Webster know if he does not even do mite counts on his hives. Does he have producing hives?

Mr. Kirk Webster has made a living doing nothing but beekeeping for the last several decades. His bees are very productive. You might check out his website and see what he's doing.

>And that is probably the true metric: do they survive and produce?

Yes.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

It would be good to know why Mr Websters bees survive and produce honey. Do his bees have mites at all? Perhaps his bees have mites that do not vector viruses ? Perhaps his bees are immune to viruses. whatever the reason it appears when these bees change location they seem to lose what ever they had and perish just like other untreated hives so unless facts can be nailed down we are talking about smoke and mirrors. Anyway that would be my humble novice opinion.
Johno


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## Cessna180 (Jan 31, 2009)

I do mite counts in the spring and just did some more. My results on Russian Colonies 4.6% and 5% mites via an Alcohol wash. These were very good Russians from Dan Harveys Apiary. I have 45 colonies. Last year I did the Amatraz 6 week treatment in the fall. Then this spring I did an Oxalic Vapor treatment after a mite count via alchohol check and the colonies were down less than 1%. Some I couldn't find a mite in the wash method. But that doesn't mean there were not any mites in the hive. They were there...I did the Oxalic vapor after the mite count this fall and will continue the Ox vapor treatment for the next two weeks to total three times.
I don't like mites, not even in the least. I hate Ticks. So I can imagine what it feels like to have a tick on your back the size of a basket ball. No thank you! So I treat. I hope I get all the mites. I want the count below 1% European Standard for concern. Randy says 2%, that's to high for me. I think its to much for him after last year. 
Folks the mites are winning no matter what everyone believes or thinks. 
I had several hives this year that had less than 1% and they were unbelievable. Must of been what a hive looked like before the mites. I did real well with honey this year or I should say the bees had a great start, I believe it was due to the bees feeling better. Do what ever you have to do to get ride of the mites they kill bees. I hope this helps.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

johno said:


> It would be good to know why Mr Websters bees survive and produce honey. Do his bees have mites at all? Perhaps his bees have mites that do not vector viruses ? Perhaps his bees are immune to viruses. whatever the reason it appears when these bees change location they seem to lose what ever they had and perish just like other untreated hives so unless facts can be nailed down we are talking about smoke and mirrors. Anyway that would be my humble novice opinion.
> Johno


"Smoke and mirrors is a metaphor for a deceptive, fraudulent or insubstantial explanation or description. The source of the name is based on magicians' illusions, where magicians make objects appear or disappear by extending or retracting mirrors amid a distracting burst of smoke. The expression may have a connotation of virtuosity or cleverness in carrying out such a deception."

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_and_mirrors

is this what you mean by 'smoke and mirrors' johno? do you think those claiming success off treatments are perpetrating a hoax?

it's no surprise that resistant bees falter when transplanted as randy oliver and others have reported. after a generation or two the bees will have hybridized with whatever is around resistant or not. as mentioned i think it's likely that some habitats are more supportive especially if there are ferals surviving, and then there is the factor of competition and pressure from other bee operations.

i'm alright with having differences of opinion in how to manage bees. i don't think there is a one size fits all approach that applies to all beekeepers. if it was necessary kill mites to sustain my apiary i wouldn't hesitate do so. 

to accuse those having success off treatments with deception because the results don't transfer to other locations seems wrong. maybe i am misunderstanding what you meant by 'smoke and mirrors'.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Cessna180 said:


> Randy says 2%, that's to high for me. I think its to much for him after last year.


here's what randy said recently in another venue:

"Unrestricted growth of varroa may eventually overwhelm
a colony, but without the presence of mite-adapted viruses, it takes an
incredibly high mite infestation rate."

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1509&L=bee-l&D=0&P=36542



Cessna180 said:


> the mites are winning no matter what everyone believes or thinks.
> 
> Do what ever you have to do to get ride of the mites they kill bees.


by that do you mean that bees might go extinct if it weren't for beekeepers treating them for mites?

it sounds like your colonies were able to become strong and productive by virtue of having the mites knocked back, most likely secondary to not having the viruses affecting the brood vs. the direct effect of parasitism on the bees. jmho.

congrats on your successful harvest.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>It would be good to know why Mr Websters bees survive and produce honey. Do his bees have mites at all? Perhaps his bees have mites that do not vector viruses ?

There are thousands of us keeping bees with no treatments. I meet a hundred or so more treatment free beekeepers most weekends. Kirk has been doing this a while. I suggest you go read his material if you would like to know how he is doing it.

> Perhaps his bees are immune to viruses. whatever the reason it appears when these bees change location they seem to lose what ever they had and perish just like other untreated hives...

That is not my observation. First of all, I have not see them perish because you change location. Second of all I don't see untreated hives perishing at a rate higher than treated hives.

>...so unless facts can be nailed down we are talking about smoke and mirrors.

Kirk is among the most honest men I know. There is no "smoke and mirrors".


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

no where in Cessna180's post was this said "that bees might go extinct if it weren't for beekeepers treating them for mites"

maybe you quoted the wrong post.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

MBush>>
Every week I meet beekeepers who are losing their hives because they don't treat. I have not met 1 who has kept
treatment free bees for more than a season.

Of the thousands of people
successfully keeping bees with no treatments that you mention one should be able to find 12 treatment free nucs or singles 
to get a yard up and running pretty easily. If you made a list of willing sellers of these bees I'll bet there wouldn't be 25 on it.
Why so few?

I keep hearing how beekeeping is local, doesn't it apply to these bees as well?

I'll believe this treatment free success story when I see it. So far I have not seen it.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

If there are cases where bees can survive as TF only in one location, and succumb when moved, I would suggest that there might be something in the original location with which they treat themselves. Some plant with medicinal properties, perhaps, or a needed mineral which is in short supply at the second location.

Or the second location has something bad for them, like a neighbor who is pesticide-happy, poor "air drainage", or a bee-haver instead of a bee-keeper.


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## libhart (Apr 22, 2010)

I believe treatment free success is just as local, and possibly more local, as all the other aspects of beekeeping. Because of this idea, I think the general hobby beekeeper population is done a disservice by those stating you must treat, but just as much so by those stating that because they can keep their bees treatment free thousands of miles away, so can everyone.

There are plenty of people keeping treatment free bees, but IMHO that doesn't imply that these same bees can be kept in that way in every part of the world, country, or even the same state. Said differently, hives crashing from mites has just as much to do, I believe, with the general location of the hives as it does with the genetics of the bees. I live in an area where I have yet to see anyone be able to successfully keep hives *long term* without treating for mites. Yes, some can survive a winter or two, but never long term. Of course the more hives you keep, the more chance you have of bringing through at least "some" hives. So if you're going to try to keep bees without treating in my area, I suggest you have a lot of hives to avoid becoming beeless. 

Wherever you are, if you're a new beekeeper, or one who has simply always treated, you can try researching those beekeepers around you to find out if they have long term success without treatments but in the end, learning whether or not you can ignore the mites and be successful will be an experiment you'll have to run yourself. And it could prove to be an extremely expensive one at that. If you run that experiment and you are successful, that's excellent and I enviously congratulate you on that success. But that doesn't mean you really should be telling every beekeeper across the entire country that you did it so it'll clearly work for all of them.


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## NSBee (Dec 20, 2014)

just found mites in my hive yesterday . in early july mite count was 0 with a sugar roll . yesterday , sept 7 it was 4 . not sure if that is a problem or not . but i plan to treat . if it was only 1 or 2 then i might not but i want to get this hive through winter and i don't have much time left to the plan is to treat today or tomorrow if i can find a place to buy OA .

bees are in a long lang hive . carnies, foundationless frames


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Taking mite counts is time-consuming. 
Attached is the spreadsheet of the counts I did on 9/6/15 (and the early summer data). I was only able to complete 2 of my 12 apiary locations in a 5 hour stretch.
This should be of interest because it includes the TF apiary and a comparison yard I treated with 65% formic on a fume pad in early August.








Protocol = 1/2 cup (nominal 300) brood frame bees in a sugar shake. Data is raw interger count of mites visible in a dishpan after ~1 min shaking.

Virtually all drones are gone from these hives, brood is occupying 5-7 frames. Nectar collection is still adding weight.

The 4 Foundationless hives in the TF apiary are not performing well. Origin of queen does not appear to affect performance.

24 hour 65% Formic fumigation shows the ability to drop mite counts below the June baseline.

Mr. Bush has derailed this thread without providing *any* hard data on his own apiary.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

interesting thread. i wish i knew why folks are so polarized on the issue of treat vs. don't treat but it's like matter and anti-matter coming into contact with each other and poof!

i bring up randy oliver a lot only because from my perspective he is one who appears to looking at this objectively and recognizing that it's not an either/or proposition but rather it's both/and. for that randy takes heat from both camps but he handles it well. i believe that his points of view and the way he approaches the subject are the most likely to move us forward in our understanding and methodology.

i appreciate the posts made above and share the view that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of these extreme positions. i am following randy's encouragement to propagate as much as i can from these survivor bees and spread their genetics. my sense however is that change may be a long time coming as the vast majority of bees are produced by commercial operations that don't find it feasible to select for resistance.

my apologies to anyone who may have taken offense at my comments as none was intended.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Mr. Bush has derailed this thread...

I merely responded to two references to "everyone" to clarify that everyone does not and answered a few other questions that came up as a result.

>...without providing *any* hard data on his own apiary.

There is no information in mite counts that I am currently interested in. I think I've stated that myself and quoted Kirk Webster's eloquent explanations at least a few times in the last decade... maybe you read one of them once? Maybe I can refresh your memory?

Long version from Kirk:
http://kirkwebster.com/index.php/wh...thats-preventing-us-from-making-good-progress

"We're trying to ensure the failure of modern beekeeping by focusing too much on single traits; by ignoring the elements of Wildness; and by constantly treating the bees. The biggest mistake of all is to continue viewing mites and other "pests" as enemies that must be destroyed, instead of allies and teachers that are trying to show us a path to a better future. The more virulent a parasite is, the more powerful a tool it can be for improving stocks and practice in the future. All the boring and soul-destroying work of counting mites on sticky boards, killing brood with liquid nitrogen, watching bees groom each other, and measuring brood hormone levels---all done in thousands of replications---will someday be seen as a colossal waste of time when we finally learn to let the varroa mites do these things for us. My own methods of propagating, selecting and breeding bees, worked out through many years of trial and error, are really just an attempt to establish and utilize Horizontal breeding with honeybees---to create a productive system that preserves and enhances the elements of Wildness. My results are not perfect, but they have enabled me to continue making a living from bees without much stress, and have a positive outlook for the future. I have no doubt that many other beekeepers could easily achieve these same results, and then surpass them."--Kirk Webster, What's missing from the current discussion and work related to bees that's preventing us from making good progress.

I quote Kirk because I think his eloquence on the topic is unsurpassed. But the bottom line is that I think counting mites will mislead you. mite counts are not what matters.

Dann Purvis was much more succinct: "It's not about mite counts, it's about survival."


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

As a new beekeeper, and a realist, I try to study the art( sometimes more engineering than art) and try to come up with a working model that is fact based. I read results of countless experiments by scientific communities in all countries and try to get to grips with keeping bees alive and healthy. Healthy hives grow want to swarm and can produce honey. I quickly came to the conclusion that one either kills mites or the mites will kill your bees, not directly of course but by means of the viruses they vector. The only results of experiments concerning TF bees that I have seen, was a Europe wide experiment with colonies of TF bees from Avignon and Gottenburg that were tested against local bees and fared no better. As a matter of interest they also tested VSH colonies and they also fared no better as far as survivability of untreated hives. I would also like to ask our commercial beekeepers if there are any of them that do not treat for varoa? So far all the papers I have seen encourage me to test and treat if required, I have seen no experiments or collected data to allow colonies to collapse and thereby gain immunity in some magic way hence the mention of smoke and mirrors. I would also state that I do not intend to offend anyone and what I have penned is my personal opinion, for what its worth.
Johno


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Johno,

Let me start by saying that I treat when indicated, and I'm a small-time hobby beekeeper. With five colonies this year, I'm not in a position to breed better bees, although I'd like to raise better bees that others have developed. I think I have one. 

You're right, if you want to look at success rates using the bees folks have been buying in boxes for years, treatment will give higher success rates. Last year's fall prep class at my bee club underscores it. Our TF advocate said, "Well, last year I had 7 hives and only two survived the winter, so I don't know why I was even asked to talk to you." The pro beekeeper who also teaches bee school treated all of hers and all survived.

As for VSH versus local, our club advocates developing local bees by breeding locally from local survivors. They have a SARE grant paper out on it. We're trying to provide as many locally-raised nucs as possible. I'm having luck with VSH bees crossed with local bees by expert queen rearers for a couple of generations, then their daughters free mated to local mutts.

But our state bee inspector spoke to us this year and is clearly in perfect agreement with Mr. Bush. His argument is clear. The bees have, in time, managed to cope with almost every pest thrown at them. He rarely sees tracheal mites any more, for example. The bees seem to have shrugged off _Nosema apis_, with _ceranae_ replacing it. AFB is still a serious threat and a main reason he has a job, but is not prevalent. What he has observed is that when the new pest arrives, people forget about the old one, stop treating for it, and the bees work it out. He wishes the commercial beekeepers, the ones with the populations to do this effectively, would put 25% of their hives aside for a few years, forget about yields, don't treat, breed from the survivors, and see what happens. He thinks it would take maybe 5 years of this. But treating the bees prevents the ugly process of losing the hives that don't cope with varroa, so we don't get there. It is not that most bees would do better without treatment, it is that treatment prevents us from breeding bees that don't need it.

What Mr. Bush and the better-informed TF crowd are doing is just this ... suffering the losses so the survivors can emerge, on the theory that this can actually work. You have to do it with the understanding that losses will heartbreaking for a while.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

"Two hives with the same mite load can be as different as day and night.
Certain colonies appear to be far more resistant to the initiation of virus
epidemics, despite mite levels being quite high."

another oliver snippet from:

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A2=ind1509&L=bee-l&D=0&P=48239

an observation from a respected field researcher and treating commercial beekeeper corroborating in part what michael bush and kirk webster are saying about the relevance (or not) of mite counts.

more of that discussion and that of a related thread suggest that highly crowded colony densities would tend to select for a mite/virus complex that was more virulent whereas when colonies are more widely dispersed the selection would be for a less virulent mite/virus complex. the idea being that when there is plenty of new blood available (crowded apiaries) it's more beneficial to be a highly virulent colony collapsing mite/virus complex, while just the opposite would be the case with less crowded and more dispersed apiaries when the opportunity for horizontal transmission is less.

do i have this correct jwc? could this be why feral bees are repopulating some areas and not others?

if true this might explain in part those observations in which bees showing resistance in their home environment fail when transplanted into another. if so it would saying less about the bees' abilities and more about the nature of the pest/pathogen, and that nature may ultimately be driven by environmental factors that we have a hand in.


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## jennSAL (Jan 6, 2014)

Topbar hives, sticky board: 1 mite per 50 sq in/ 48 hrs (so about 6 mites whole hive in 1 day), 0 mites per 30 sq in/ 48 hrs (under 5 mites whole hive in 1 day). I had met treatment thresholds 2 months earlier with 30-60 mites/hive and had dusted xxx sugar once and placed dried apple mint on top of the topbars a few weeks later (have screened BB with a partial ventilation blocker an inch or two below it). Anyone else try herbal treatments on the leaf vs essential oils? BTW no significant change in beetle count! Beetle blasters refreshed and more added.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Has anyone suggested the silly (SILLY) idea that we need to raise healthier mites that don't carry diseases? That idea is way out there but it's an idea. How about finding something that is a parasite to mites and introducing it to colonies? Then we could do mite-mite counts. 
There is more than one way to skin a cat so maybe there's more than one way to control varroa destructor.

(yet another crazy betty idea)


Back on topic, my hive with two deeps and a medium had a mite-count of 12/300. I'm not sure what I'll do but am thinking real hard about maq's. I'm being honest and it makes me look stupid. So?

I'm on the fence about treating and the pickets are starting to hurt my butt.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Has anyone suggested the silly (SILLY) idea that we need to raise healthier mites that don't carry diseases?

"As long as you treat you keep breeding weak bees and super mites. The sooner you stop, the sooner you start breeding mites adapted to their host and bees who can survive with them."--Michael Bush
http://bushfarms.com/beesfoursimplesteps.htm#notreatments

"In Italy, Norberto Milani reported feral colonies living with varroa (Milani et al., 1999) and suggested that the mites had become less virulent. In a study in the Arnot Forest, New York State, USA, Tom Seeley studied feral colonies over three years, in an area where he had previously observed similar numbers of colonies before the arrival of varroa in the late 1980s (Seeley, 2007). He then compared these bees elsewhere with other commercially available strains, and found no difference, concluding that mites in the Forest had become avirulent."--Norman L Carreck, Breeding honey bees for varroa tolerance
http://www.researchgate.net/profile..._tolerance/links/004635395ad6181c13000000.pdf

"Evidently, the stable bee-mite relationship in the Arnot Forest reflects adaptations for parasite (mite) avirulence, not host (bee) resistance."--Thomas Seeley, Honey bees of the Arnot Forest: a population of feral colonies persisting with Varroa destructor in the northeastern United States
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1051/apido:2006055#page-1

I think I've seen a presentation by Gutzman on the topic as well as some by other people.

> That idea is way out there but it's an idea. How about finding something that is a parasite to mites and introducing it to colonies? 

Stratiolaelaps Scimitus
Chelifer cancroides


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## jakec (May 26, 2015)

I have 1 hive that was started end of may from a 5 frame nuc and 1 hive from a swarm I caught a few weeks after. hives are 5 miles apart. I put a sticky board in the tray on the nuc hive and had around 8 or so mites after 24 hours. after 3 days it had about 15. this hive has 1 deep and 1 medium brood boxes and one med super. didn't check swarm hive and im not going to, just gonna let that one roll on. the maqs came in last week and will be going in nuc hive soon.


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## vdotmatrix (Apr 5, 2014)

I have 4 (3)box 8-framed medium hives a 1 (4)-boxed 5-frame NUC.

I did the 50% FA on the fancy pants fume board(s) that I made here: http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/varroa/FAFumigat.pdf yesterday and removed the boards 24 hours later and did a quick mite drop as follows:

NUC #5: counted 48 VD
Hive#4: Counted 490 VD
HIVE#3: counted 20 VD
Hive#2: counted 33 VD
Hive #1: counted 550 VD

I placed the fume board on top of the brood boxes with what I though would be mostly honey stores for winter on the very top. When I removed the the top box, I was surprised to find dead brood under the "honey top box". Does this mean these hives are slightly honey bound with honey in the middle box with brood extending in to the upper most box?

Thanks


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/2006/05/m6039.pdf

"Our data suggest that a host-parasite co-adaptation has occurred ensuring survival of both the host and the parasite."


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