# Varroa Mites - test or treat?



## aristaeus (Jun 7, 2018)

We undertook bee classes in the fall and the Mann Lake distributor/educator told us that they treat for mites twice a year, regardless. They did not at any point talk extensively about testing but I would assume they do test. 

We attended a local club this past week where they very much focused on testing and less so on treating, simply saying that of all the possible methods an alcohol wash was the only way to go as a sugar roll would cripple bees and leave them to die slowly v instant death with an alcohol wash. Whilst I might raise an eyebrow at the very black and white opinion that there is no solid alternative to an alcohol wash, they said they ONLY treat when the mite load is above X. i.e. there is no regular treatment unless it is needed. The Mann Lake people treat twice a year like clockwork regardless of load as a pre-emptive strike.

I am not yet proficient enough to form an opinion as to which is the 'correct' route (yes, I understand, it is bee-keeping so there are 10 preferred approaches for every 10 people you ask!) but I am keen to learn which has more followers. Treat regularly or treat only if the load dictates it?


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

I always monitored with alcohol washes and treated only when thresholds were hit. About a year ago, I heard Jennifer Barry of UGA say that she had changed her thoughts on this and that she now treated, then tested to determine the efficiency of the treatment. She said it was a big departure from her earlier practices, but as she learned more about the varroa problem, her approach was evolving. 

I have a rule that I am going to use one-shot OAV _*anytime*_ I find my hive broodless (i.e. post splits, post swarms, etc.) without testing. This spring, I experimented with Snelgrove boards to force a brood break so that I could OAV and start the flow "clean." Starting this Fall, I have decided to treat "by the calendar" as soon as honey supers come off. Previously, with the exception of OAV at brood breaks, I only treated when thresholds were met via alcohol wash monitoring. 

So I was basically a "treat-as-indicated" beekeeper that seems to be slowly morphing into a "treat-by-the-calendar" beekeeper.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Test, of course, because that's an excellent habit to get into. Then treat, and then test again to make sure it did what you thought it would. Otherwise you're just wishin' and hopin' for the best. Varroa mites don't play by the same rules.

Do Michigan Ext. style sugar rolls.  I have often written about them in the last few months. Do a search on my user name. In at least one post I went into great detail. Do them once per month on every colony, plus an extra one about two weeks after finishing whatever treatment you have used. Keep doing them until it's too cold. Resume again as soon a the temps allow in your area.

You need to test to learn the mite patterns in your area, with your bees, and your management style. One size fits all is a very dangerous plan when it comes to mites.

FWIW, I also stick board once week, every week of the year (yes, even in winter), in addition to my monthly sugar rolls in warm weather. I hate surprises.

Nancy


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

for the most part unless I am evaluating a breeder for TF status , every thing gets a fall shot of OA trickle when they go brood less regardless of what there rolls were.. it too easy cheap and effective not to and hedges my bets against the local mite bombs that plague my operation.
from there I fly back split in the spring on the production hives and break the brood in to nucs, from there I intervene only if the counts dictate. 
fall 
I know quite a few backyard beekeepers out here who get by on 1 or 2 treatments and don't bother with counts, they do allright. Other parts of the country your hives will crash if you run them like that. best bet would be to start counts now, hit them with OA fall brodless and see what they do. The mite counts will answer your questions


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

I agree with msl. Even though I am drifting more toward prophylactic treatment, I will always do regular alcohol washes to make sure I know my mite loads. In my climate, I don't have to worry about survival through long, cold winters. I only need to keep the mites off of them and keep them queenright.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

I would like to know what evidence your club members have for saying that sugar rolls injure the bees and cause a slow death. Sounds like total Bee S to me. J


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Here in Virginia we are approaching the time that brood will start diminishing while varoa will continue increasing so I will test my mite level with a round of oav treatments. If the mite falls on the sticky board are over 150 mites I will wait 5 days and test again and keep doing so until the mite drop is negligible. That should take me to the end of July so around mid August I will again do a test treatment and depending on the mite drop might continue to treat until too few mites drop and that I believe will leave me mite free for my winter bees. A few years ago I went the route of opening hives and taking 300 bees sugar rolling some and alcohol drenching others but with the dearth at this time of the year not to mention the misery of working in the yards in 90 degree high humidity heat I lost a number of hives due to robbing frenzies that are unstoppable. You guys need any bees? I still have about 10 nucs left with 30 gone and I am getting rid of 10 3 box splits, so maybe my system is doing OK.
Johno


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

As Nancy stated, "the mites do not play by our rules". Sometimes, the treatment just does not work as expected. Randy Oliver has specifically noted this with the use of OA and many people have noted it with Apivar and Hopguard. If you just use a schedule, and the previous treatment did not work as effectively as it should have, you will have mite overload way before your next scheduled treatment time. Thus, you will lose that hive. Even if you knock the mite load to zero, but treated too late, the viruses may have taken hold and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Finally, if your neighbor's hives are crashing and the mite ridden bees are bringing the mites to your yard, without testing, you will not know it until it is too late. 

Nobody enjoys testing and treating but the time spent is money earned with more surviving hives and fewer deadouts.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

aristaeus said:


> We undertook bee classes in the fall and the Mann Lake *distributor*/educator told us that they treat for mites twice a year, regardless.


The Mann Lake representative's ultimate goal is to promote their products and increase their sales. I'm not at all knocking him/her, just pointing out that there is more to their involvement in the classes than the education aspect. It's a dual purpose mission for them. Just business.

With that said, back to the question. It's extremely important to monitor mite levels in your hives on a regular basis and have a clear understanding of the seasonal shifts in the mite loads. Alcohol or sugar, either method will work for you if done correctly and regularly. Every region has it's own unique trends and local pressures, you need to understand what's happening in your immediate area. 

After years of monitoring I discovered that, in general, recurring mite load escalations showed up in my colonies at about the same time every year making it necessary to treat. So I guess I've ended up in the same camp as the Mann Lake educator. I schedule treatment twice a year, late summer and again during the winter broodless period. Mite spikes are like clockwork. So I agree with the "regardless" statement, for me anyway.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Some years back I was inspired to jump on the treatment free bandwagon, but despite small cell, treatment free wax, hard bond and all my other best efforts, it just didn't work out for me.

So next in my quest for a varroa tolerant bee, I went the only treat as required route. Every hive was analysed and only treated when a certain number of criterion were met, designed to be when there were pretty much no other options left to save the particular hive.

The good thing about this approach was it enabled me to identify the hives with good mite tolerance. But the bad was that while some hives didn't need treatment at the same time, eventually, all of them did. The issue being I was running sites with up to 100 hives in a site, and mite drift was something I couldn't do much about. So eventually all hives were getting treated, but it was taking me a heckuva lot more time to do it.

In the end for me, the pros were outweighed by the cons, I'm now back treating on a timetable.

For someone with a few hives and enough time, treating as required only can work, particularly if you are wanting to identify your more tolerant hives. But I'll share one thing I learned that is often not considered. Treating only as required can lead to high average virus levels. The reason is this. - Mites exchange body fuids and viruses between bees, and the mites themselves are infected and harbor virus infections. So when there are high mite levels, virus levels in the bees will also be high. When every hive in an apiary is treated at the same time say, twice yearly, the mite levels in the entire apiary are knocked back, hopefully to well below 1%, depending on treatment type. At this time the individual bees themselves cannot eliminate the viruses they have, but the hive as a whole is purged as old infected bees die off, and are replaced by new, less infected ones. Thus, in a couple of months, the entire apiary has a relatively healthy population of bees.

But if an only treat as required system is used, at any time there will be a pool of hives that did not meet the treatment criterion, and have a low mite level, but enough to go on and cause significant viral infection of the bees before the next mite load tests are done. There will always be a higher virus load in the apiary. May not matter to some people, but it is something that should be considered.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Our local bee club advocates treating by calendar with Apivar and then testing and treating with OAV as necessary. Some members are TF, and have been for many years. We respect their decision but still encourage treating. Last year I was too late with some hives and lost them.


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## Knobs (Sep 20, 2014)

I noticed that the original posters Mann Lake Rep and JW Palmer's bee club both believe in treating by calendar. I don't think that is a coincidence. I think its because of the area they are both located in. I'm located in Southern Indiana / Kentucky and my honey flow is very similar to the flow in Virgina and West Virginia. That flow has been called a Mid Atlantic flow. It's basically a short 6 or so week honey flow based upon trees (mainly poplar but also locust, black cherry, etc) that is followed by a severe summer dearth. 


In this area if you start the spring with healthy low mite hives they will stay fairly low mite until the end of the honey flow (after all the queens are laying nonstop and even though the mite levels are increasing exponentially the honey bee population is going up exponentially also). However all that changes when the honey flow stops. Testing here in mid-June on hives that had low mites at the start of spring typically show low mite levels, on the range of 1 to 2 mites. The "experts" will say that is below the treatment level and you shouldn't treat; but are they are thinking about what is going to happen over the next two months in this area? The queens are going to cut back on laying since the dearth has started; while the mites will still be expanding exponentially. So between mid- June and mid-August those originally low 1 to 2 mite levels will rise rapidly with the mites increasing by a factor of 4 to 8 and the bee population decreasing in half. Treating by Calendar in this area is wise as it allows the mite levels to be kept low; with the hives having healthy low mite levels going into fall. Otherwise a lot of hives will end up with high mite levels before anyone realizes it and those bees will enter the winter weak and sickly.

Many other areas of the country will not see this (especially farther north where the bees build up a later and the summer dearth is not so severe if it exists at all).

As you can tell, I agree with treatiung by Calander, the best advice for newcomers in these areas is to treat in late July / early August (right after the honey flow stops). If you want to treat by mite levels then you should do mite checks every couple weeks to be safe. That sounds easy but its time consuming and a pain. Most people not wanting to test frequently will see a low number in mid-June and think their hive is good for the year. Maybe they will check again in late August or September just to find out their hives are already in trouble.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

The point that I am trying to make is that rather going to all that trouble to open up your hive and sample and kill maybe 300 bees, sample all your bees and estimate how many bees you have treated with an OAV treatment. If you have 3 boxes around 30000 bees a mite fall of around 300 mites you are in the 1% area with a no hassle or dead bee method and much more dead mites.
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Johno can you help me with your numbers, feels like I am missing somehting?
As I crunch them on a summer OAV treatment 
if I have 30K bees and 300 dead mites, 80% of the mites are under the cappings and 20 are on the bees, that's says I had 1500 mites in the hive for a 5% infection and now have 1200 still under the cappings for a 4% total infection and a week or so down the road would get about 6 mites per 300 in a roll.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Msl, I did not realize that when you did an alcohol wash to try to see what your mite count would be that you get the phoretic mites in the sample and somehow destroy all the mites in the brood. I always thought that if your sample was higher than 2%, I would even go for 1% then you would be looking at the treatment threshold, silly me! I must be doing it all wrong. However you can sample your 300 maybe, bees and I will sample my estimated total population, Do you have any other sapling math?
Johno


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I asked nice.... so be it


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## dudelt (Mar 18, 2013)

Johno, 

The problem with any mite sampling is that it has its drawbacks. When using an OAV treatment and looking at the mite drop, you cannot compare the mite drop in one hive to another hive because the colony sizes may range from 10,000 bees up to 50,000 bees. You may know how many there are in your hives but 99% of all beekeepers will not be able to accurately tell you how many bees are in any given beehive. Therefore, if you have a drop of 300 bees in a hive with only 10,000 bees you have major issues. If there are 50,000 bees in the hive, It is not much of an issue. But you have to know the population of the hive to make an accurate determination. When you compare about 300 bees from each hive, you have a similar sample size to draw conclusions from and you can make pretty good comparisons from hive to hive. 

I will admit however that I too have done sampling by treating once with OAV and looking at the mite drop. I do believe the method has some value to add to any beekeeper's arsenal against mites. It is much faster and easier to do it this way but the results have to be evaluated more on an intuitive level when doing it rather than a purely statistical basis.


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## aristaeus (Jun 7, 2018)

Many thanks for the replies. I have new hives (from 2- month old nucs) but will do a test in the next week or so to see how things look.

I guess the one thing that surprised me from the posts above is the number of tests with some recommending every 4 weeks.

I will see how my initial tests go and take it from there. This is all still new to me and testing for mites is going to be a new skill/chore I guess.

Thanks for the feedback, it is very helpful.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

TF or not it is the responsibility of all beekeepers to test and requeen mite susceptible stock with daughters of more mite resistant mothers. Otherwise you are perpetuating the problem. I happen to do it with bond with plans to follow through with additional testing to identify queens with strong mite resistance in addition to those that survive bond. 

Selection is very important and it has to be across the board. 

Also do not source queens from sources not serious about selection for mite resistance. That also perpetuates the problem.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Those who are familiar with IT business know of "black box" testing and "white box" testing.
I have to say, I much prefer "black box" testing after 20 years in IT.
Those who are curious of the details - google.

This means one thing in the beekeeping context - do they die OR don't they die.
Sufficient testing as for me.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>...simply saying that of all the possible methods an alcohol wash was the only way to go as a sugar roll would cripple bees and leave them to die slowly v instant death with an alcohol wash.

This is blatantly not true. Powdered sugar does not kill bees. There is much research on the topic. Quite a bit is from the University of Nebraska.


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## aristaeus (Jun 7, 2018)

Michael Bush said:


> >...simply saying that of all the possible methods an alcohol wash was the only way to go as a sugar roll would cripple bees and leave them to die slowly v instant death with an alcohol wash.
> 
> This is blatantly not true. Powdered sugar does not kill bees. There is much research on the topic. Quite a bit is from the University of Nebraska.



Thanks, to be honest whenever I hear something along the lines of 'THIS is the only way to do it, every other way is bad" I smell a rat. I am sure people have preferences but suspect there are shades of grey in terms of which is "best" as opposed to a binary black/white scenario.


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## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

I know people who use powdered sugar as a treatment for mites.

Alex


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Same. Long as they are aware that it don't kill the bees and it don't kill the mites either, all good.


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Powdered sugar is really good for Dominoes sugar, the more you use the better they will like it. Actually with winter feeding coming on I wish I had some shares in Dominoes sugar. Oldtimer Dominoes is a big sugar refiner in the States.
Johno


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

Treat don't test... That said, I tested extensively. I NEVER tested a hive that hadn't been treated in months that didn't need treating. The testing PROVED to me I needed to treat, but eventually I saw it as a waste of time. So I've played around with treating and found treating when the supers come off around 1 july and again at thanksgiving works very well. 
I think your 300 mite drop not being a problem is incorrect. The real danger comes in the fall with 30K bees dwindles as the hive lowers numbers getting ready to overwinter. 
The mite count in relation to the bee count really goes up. Treat on a schedule, and when your first OAV treatment doesn't yield 3K Plus dead mites in 72 ours, you can consider doing something different. I don't test, I treat. Testing is good for your understanding, and to determine if you have a mite problem. But if you have a mite problem, you will always have a mite problem. I didn't treat last year or so far this year, you should see the dead mites in my oil trays. Health problems stopped me last year, but I will treat before the end of the month.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Brushy Mountain has the 50 ct. pack of Apivar on sale for $130. I just bought a pack and will be treating all my hives as soon as it gets here. No more repeats of last year's mite crashes if I can help it. Gotta buy a provap110 this fall. Gave up on the OAF without ever actually trying it. I can't risk what I have built this year on something so many people swear is ineffective.


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## aran (May 20, 2015)

im doing OAV spring, until supers are on, then plan MAQS during a cooler week in august then apivar in the fall after supers off then OAV up til winter time.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

JWPalmer said:


> ... 50 ct. pack of Apivar on sale for $130. ...


Treating is not cheap either, it looks like.
Makes for an expensive hobby.


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## davemal (Mar 6, 2015)

This is a very timely discussion for me. I am in mid-MD. I pulled supers a week ago and just did an alcohol wash on eight triple deep colonies. 10-framers. Six tested less than 1%. Two were about 7%. I applied Apivar to the two that tested at 7%. I did not treat the other six which were well below the threshold of 3%. I am confused by what appears to be a lot of support for prophylactic treatment using hard chemicals such as Amitraz which is the active ingredient of Apivar. I thought treatment when not called for was a no-no. Is the consensus to treat (in my case with Apivar) regardless of mite count, but that if I do to recheck mite levels periodically?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

You will not get a consensus on the answer to that.

Reason being everyones situation is different. There could be a small hobbyist with a 1/2 dozen hives who can easily afford the time to test each hive and treat accordingly. Or, there's a large commercial who cannot take the time to do that, that have to treat whole apiaries as an organism ( cos the hives share mites ), and testing and treating hives individually is a no no, it would mean a higglety pigglety treatment regime with huge amount of time wasted, not to mention that commercial beekeepers have to keep miticides out of their honey crop so have to treat within certain time windows.

Beyond that, people have their own philosophies and may apply them regardless of conditions. IE, they may accept a 50% annual loss of hives to follow their own treatment philosophy, where another beekeeper may not be OK with that level of losses so would have a different treatment philosophy.

So you won't get a consensus, people do what suits them.



davemal said:


> Six tested less than 1%. Two were about 7%. I applied Apivar to the two that tested at 7%. I did not treat the other six which were well below the threshold of 3%.


 I think your treatment threshold is too high. If you get 1% when there is a full brood nest but just before they stop brood raising, the level will increase dramatically in a short time period. 3% is a heckuva lot of mites if a hive has a full brood nest, and 7% is borderline fatal even if treatment is done immediately.


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## davemal (Mar 6, 2015)

Thanks, Oldtimer, I understand what you are saying and it does make sense. I did notice several of the colonies with many frames of capped brood, so understand that a rapid increase now in mites is highly likely. I will certainly treat all, but why test at all? Is there a time of the time of the year when testing will yield helpful information? If not used as benchmark for treating, why test at all? Thanks, again, for your detailed reply.


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## aran (May 20, 2015)

davemal i struggle with the same question. 
ie. If varroa is ubiquitous as we are told, and the rate of mite load increase is relatively predictable, and low mite counts are essential to overwintering survival, then why not simply follow a schedule of treatments and forego testing all together?
If mite resistance or the potential for mite resistance is the answer to this question then this likely has some merit although again given the ubiquitous nature of the mites ( or seemingly) one is going to have to treat at some point unless you are following a treatment free program and accepting heavier hive losses.
I have the sugar and alcohol roll stuff at home but honestly ( this may not be a popular statement) i tend to simply treat with OAV, apivar and MAQS throughout spring-> fall , selecting the Rx based on the supering situation.


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

"I think your treatment threshold is too high. If you get 1% when there is a full brood nest but just before they stop brood raising, the level will increase dramatically in a short time period. 3% is a heckuva lot of mites if a hive has a full brood nest, and 7% is borderline fatal even if treatment is done immediately." 

+1 The numbers get out of wack fast when the bee count starts falling.

"I am confused by what appears to be a lot of support for prophylactic treatment using hard chemicals such as Amitraz which is the active ingredient of Apivar. I thought treatment when not called for was a no-no. Is the consensus to treat (in my case with Apivar) regardless of mite count, but that if I do to recheck mite levels periodically?"

Most people support prophylactic treatments are using OAV. It doesn't work anything like the harsh chemicals you listed. They don't build up a resistance to it by using it. 
If you are using treatments like Apivar, you should test and not treat if you don't have to. 

In my case, I never tested a hive that didn't need to be treated (unless it had been recently treated). Eventually, you see it as a waste of time when the results is always true. 
I don't count when I treat anymore either. However, drop counts following OAV are very satisfying. Watching drop counts after treatments in the thousands drop to under 50 with 
three treatments a week apart will really give you a warm fuzzy about what you've done to the mite load in that hive.

Of course Old Timer hit the nail on the head, there is a big difference in how a small hobby apiary is run and a large commercial one is run. Very different approaches and objectives


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Treatment thresholds vary depending on the ecological context. I've had hives with 8 percent in fall that did very well that winter. Lots of people around here are only recently testing in the fall, depending on prophylactic treatments, and are discovering high mite loads. They assume the hives are goners, because people tell them that, treat anyway, and they are fine, maybe would have been fine without treating. Its that interaction between bees, mites and viruses/other pathogens that determine mite thresholds, not some arbitrary number. When one is TF, the actual threshold for survival with strength in the spring can be determined. Other than that it is just here say.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Good points. I was reading Squarepeg recently and he spoke of some hives with massively high mite numbers, that for any of my bees would have been fatal, yet the hives came through fine.

Why is that? Wish I knew. Thing is, his bees cannot be mite "resistant", if they were they would surely not have allowed mite numbers to climb so high. They must be mite "tolerant", because they survived. And, they must have some means to get rid of mites because at later times his hives have lower mite numbers, the mites do not just continue to increase _ad infinitum_.


So much still to be understood..


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> So much still to be understood..


indeed ot, indeed.

i don't know if you caught it on my thread but in addition to having high mite infestation rates virology studies performed by dr. stephen martin's team showed my dvw type a loads were high enough to put my colonies at risk for dying.

yet my losses remain relatively low for some reason, and i am just as curious as to the 'why is that' as you are.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

To be honest, I graze, rather than read every single thing. I missed the virology study.

I know you were planning to spread some bees further afield, how has that been working out?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Oldtimer said:


> I know you were planning to spread some bees further afield, how has that been working out?


i've managed to get queens to a dozen or so others and from what i hear they are doing well for them.

to be honest the queen rearing side of my operation has given way to honey production due to the limited hours i have for beekeeping. 

the supplier that i originally got mine from has stepped up his game this year after a few years hiatus and put out a fair number of cells, and he plans to do even more next year.

a few of us are discussing the possibility of getting serious about cranking out large numbers of queens once retirement gets here in the next year or two.

at that point i'll likely get more involved with the local beekeeping organizations and see what we can do about encouraging others to shift from mail order bees to proven local survivor stock - which are basically offshoots of the wild type honey bees located in our surrounding woodlands.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

aristaeus said:


> Treat regularly or treat only if the load dictates it?


what has the supplier of your nucs been doing?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

squarepeg said:


> at that point i'll likely get more involved with the local beekeeping organizations and see what we can do about encouraging others to shift from mail order bees to proven local survivor stock - which are basically offshoots of the wild type honey bees located in our surrounding woodlands.


If the bees are as good as you say they are I would definately be trying to discourage importations of other bees.


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## f650cs (Jun 16, 2014)

I would also like some more information that supports the statement that sugar rolls kill the bees with a slow death.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

I doubt you will find any. I reread the OP and it seems that is the opinion of maybe a few members of a local bee club. They need someone more knowledgeable giving their presentations.


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## Beeboy01 (May 20, 2008)

I've gone from treatment free to biweekly mite drop counts for my hives. Treatment has been Apavir strips in the fall or when needed and all the hives get treatment not just the problem ones. I had a complete wipe out of my bee yard five years ago due to SHB's and mites. It really changed my bee keeping style. The local club just purchased the Mighty Mite hive heater unit which holds the hive at 107 degrees for about two hours. The higher temperature over the two hour dwell is supposed to be effective at killing the mites still on the capped brood. I'm a little leary of it and the 2 hour dwell time and cost makes it limited mainly to the hobby bee keepers. If it works as well as the manufacturer says it does then it is definitely a viable option for mite control with no chemicals.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Oldtimer said:


> Good points. I was reading Squarepeg recently and he spoke of some hives with massively high mite numbers, that for any of my bees would have been fatal, yet the hives came through fine.
> 
> Why is that? Wish I knew. Thing is, his bees cannot be mite "resistant", if they were they would surely not have allowed mite numbers to climb so high. They must be mite "tolerant", because they survived. And, they must have some means to get rid of mites because at later times his hives have lower mite numbers, the mites do not just continue to increase _ad infinitum_.
> 
> ...


Yes I think there is lots to be learned. Hive decision making for example in mite resistant stock. Bees might have other priorities than mites at certain times of year. Sort of like letting the dishes pile up then deal with them all at once. Its the overall partitioning of hive effort throughout the season that we don't know that much about. Its why mite counts in and of themselves doesn't really offer that much information except in completely extreme cases, and where there are anomalies in relation to other hives in the apiary. Some of the more extreme low mite counts in stock such Keufuss, may have to be artificially maintained and this may be useful in environments that has chaotic adaptive environments caused by our collective bad habits as beekeepers. But where the adaptive environment is more stable, the thresholds may be more like 10 to 12 percent in the fall. We need to ask ourselves why we find thresholds that are low in some areas, and what we can do to stablize the adaptive environment and raise them.


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Likely not mite tolerant but virus tolerant.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

Again an arbitrary definition. If a hive controls the overall mite dynamics successfully from year to year, then it is mite resistant. It may not be in the arbitrary parameters we like to see (without scientific basis) but mite levels are controlled. I believe I've seen hives that have very little mite resistance, in which case mites can run amok. Also its a chicken and an egg situation. Does viral susceptibility lead to mite susceptibility or is the reverse true? Probably both, but for instance, a very good housekeeper can become a bad one if laid up in bed with the flu. So take good mite resistant bees, put them in a new viral environment, watch them fail and get labeled failures by ignorant beekeepers. Lots of decent bees get labelled bad because of this sort of thing because we are evaluating the wrong thing. A queen line may not do well in a new area, but the traits she has may be useful. So we should be looking for causal links between success and a trait set, rather than evaluating a queen line to see how they do.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Good thoughts, you have obviously thought about this deeply.

Re traits, and how they stand up in different environments, something often not considered is the exact converse can be the case in a hard bond situation. The bees are judged by just one thing - are they alive, or dead, after a period of exposure to varroa mites. If they are dead, they are labelled "weak bees I didn't want". This is regardless of any other good traits they may have had, ie outstanding honey production, beekeeper friendly to work, or whatever.

It's why I went off hard bond, and prefer a soft bond approach, when I have the resources to properly do it.


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## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I've mentioned before that perhaps New Zealand bees aren't ready for hard bond, unless a beekeeper has thousands of hives and gets radical with them like weaver, or government gets involved and forces the issue and gets it done. I'm sure that isn't on the radar of regulatory bodies. 

What is not talked about it the responsibility to select as much as possible. The advantage that nature has over us is the relentless never ending selection pressure that results in quick and maintained adaptation. The advantage of hard bond (when possible) is that it selects quickly, is across the board and maintains necessary traits for survival in the population. The baseline. From there we select for other traits including enhanced mite resistance if we want. I have colonies that you might even like. Big productive, frugal in winter, make great comb are reasonably gentle and have survived 2 winters. They have big energy, but don't take it out on the beekeeper when you open them up. I often work them without smoke. These I make queens from. I have some bees that are originally from Hawaian queens that have been good in the past, but are now getting feisty. They can be fine to work, smoke is good, and if anything goes wrong (queenlessness, iffy weather), they get in a bad mood fast. I had some staple my socks to my ankles recently. The aggressive hives don't get queens made from them. I maintain that line from the gentle ones. 

I don't have the attitude that everyone else's bees are bad, just that they are unselected, at least in terms of mite/viruses. If we are concerned about this issue, then selection should be across the board however one decides to do it. The title of the thread could be "test and select" and then we would be getting somewhere. Don't complain about mite bombs, if no effort is made to make bees as mite resistant as possible.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

A little story I can tell you:

I have an aquaintance who selects for mite resistance. He dominates the area. His mini mating nucs are placed in the center. 
He treats with OA the susceptibles, breeds from the tf. Open mating.

He works with a friend. They mark the colonies which they want to treat and the friend comes in with a OAV.

But one colony was on a different hive system. So the unit they used could not be used and they planned to treat it later. 
Then this mite ridden colony was forgotten. Every time they remembered they forgot to treat it once again.

Weeds were growing and the colony was still living. After 3 years they remembered that it was not treated and looked at the mite situation. They survived. They were harvested all the years. They were handled exact like the others except treatments.

There was not much drift. They did not see a difference in mite infestation with respect to drift from this colonies to the others. They did not treat more colonies than before.

One of my co-workers now got the queen in a split, because the other persons did not want to let these bees be bond. Fear of losses came again. They have mites. They have some defect wing bees.
The colony is otherwise thriving, makes honey and has a little bit more defense compared to the others. They act like my co-workers AMM.

This co-worker had a case of severe cancer 7 years ago and could not care for his bees. He was in hospital for 3 years. When he came back he had some survivors.
He still has the descendants. He does hard bond but let them swarm.
He is not isolated.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I would also like some more information that supports the statement that sugar rolls kill the bees with a slow death.

Nick Aliano did extensive research on powdered sugar at the University of Nebraska and concluded it did not harm adult bees and did very little harm to open brood. Basically the only open brood that was harmed was very young and not a big investment of resources.

Of course that is the opposite of what you are requesting...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.2005.11101144
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.2005.11101148
https://esa.confex.com/esa/2003/techprogram/paper_11648.htm


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## IsaacJohnson (Jul 27, 2018)

Very nice info!


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