# more tf mite counts



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Thanks for posting the mite counts; It appears that they are handling the mites well. Glad to see some figures indicating whether they survive high levels or manage by keeping the levels low. 

Check that honey that is uncapped; it might be at a good moisture level. Late in the season they may not cap if they figure they might be using it soon. I found some uncapped frames that were down near 17% moisture. I probably oversupered too but it is hard to foresee the weather.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

you're welcome frank. perhaps they are just handling them well, and perhaps the honey diet gives them some advantage against the viruses ect. the two i'm reporting today look strong to me, i guess we'll see how they overwinter.

i think you are right about the uncapped honey. it's thick and i wasn't able to shake it out of the frames. i'll keep taking the nice frames for now but i may end up harvesting a few of those in the end as well.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Thanks for the update sp.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

beemandan said:


> Thanks for the update sp.


ubetcha.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

got into a few more hives this past weekend and it appears that the fall brooding of winter bees is pretty much done in most of them. i've identified four out of my eighteen that are dwindled in population with one of those four having diseased brood. i didn't spend much time looking for queens because the dearth has the robbers out in full force, but i did see a queen in two of the four dwindled colonies. the remaining 14 are strong in population and heavy with stores. this spring i had a couple of colonies make it through until march with just a frame or two of bees that went on to produce honey for me this year. it will be interesting to see what happens with the dwindled ones, although they most likely represent what will be my winter losses this year.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

we are expecting our first hard freeze this weekend and i weighed all of my hives today.

hive #7 (13.4% infestation on 10/19) has a strong population and weighs 106 lbs.

hive #9 (10.7% infestation on 10/19) is also strong with bees and weighs 101.5 lbs.

both are in a single deep and two mediums, and the broodnests are pretty much backfilled at this time.

they appear to have had success getting through the fall brooding and were able to capitalize on the fall flow.

three of the four hives that i identified as weak in my last post were (as expected) very light at 75 lbs. or less. i did not take samples from these, but it appears likely they were not able to overcome mite pressure during the fall brood up. the one i reported about in the first thread with the 8.9% infestation is a bit heavier and weighs 96 lbs. (the 8.9% may have been an underestimate because i only washed the bees once, but found later you can pick up a few more mites with repeated washes, thanks lee!)

the prolonged winter and shortened spring this year resulted in not as much honey getting capped on the spring flow, and most of that open feed was consumed on the fall brood up. fortunately we had a good fall flow and the stores were replaced on it, although my hives are not quite as heavy this year as they were last year. this year's harvest was down about 25% from last year, but nuc sales made up for that deficit with net income for the year about the same as last year.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

squarepeg said:


> you're welcome frank. perhaps they are just handling them well, and perhaps the honey diet gives them some advantage against the viruses ect. the two i'm reporting today look strong to me, i guess we'll see how they overwinter.


That's for sure. Handling it well? Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Don't call this handling them well until they make it through the Winter splitable.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Good luck squarepeg. I broke down and treated. 

Hovering around 10% in mite samples, I'd rather requeen next year with some more VSH queens than lose the hive and have to start from scratch. I left my VSH hives unsampled and untreated (its their first year anyway), and will monitor those mite counts next year. I have a hand full of queens from BeeWeaver queens, some in their fourth generation since arriving from Navasota...They averaged 9 gallons of honey this year -I think they have lost their resistance to mite build up by now. 

After reflecting on the additional mites discovered with a second shake, I suspect the research incorporates that variable in the data, so I don't do the second shake now.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

no 'counting chickens' nor 'calling' it anything here mark. note the use of the terms 'perhaps' and 'i guess we'll see'. i.e. i agree with you and hope you didn't read more into my comment than was intended.

at least we've got a couple of examples of tf colonies with high mite counts that have apparently been able to complete winter preps with no supplemental feeding after yielding a modest harvest in a slack year. if these happen to survive it may suggest that they are coping with the mites (and the vectored viruses) as opposed to keeping mite count low via some hygienic behavior.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood lee. 

i'm not ruling it out if losses get to the point of being to much work to overcome. i need to start sampling more and earlier in the season to see how strongly the counts correlate to collapses.

have you come up with a threshold that you are comfortable with?


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

squarepeg said:


> ...have you come up with a threshold that you are comfortable with?


No squarepeg, don't have a comfortable threshold. The 'official' economic threshold is growing smaller and smaller as the research comes in. Randy Oliver, I think, reports about 2% doesn't he? 

I'm still TF at heart and hoping these VSH bees really work. Looked at brood nests of F-1 queens from my VPBreeder queen today and saw obvious evidence of hygenic behavior (opened cells and cells with caps repaired). WooHoo!


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> no at least we've got a couple of examples of tf colonies with high mite counts that have apparently been able to complete winter preps with no supplemental feeding after yielding a modest harvest in a slack year. if these happen to survive it may suggest that they are coping with the mites (and the vectored viruses) as opposed to keeping mite count low via some hygienic behavior.


I would call these 10% figures high, if looked at what seemed to be the limit of near future (winter) survival. Once I estimated it to be 5%. But it was about 10 years ago, when my bees were "more normal".

What do we know about the mite thresholds? Nothing. If these strong colonies with 10% infestation have mite resistant qualities, 10% might be just about the limit they start mite removal processes, become angry, limit brood rearing, and before you know it, there is 1% infestation. 
If they don´t have these qualities, they might be "boom-crasher" of 2015.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Juhani Lunden said:


> I would call these 10% figures high, if looked at what seemed to be the limit of near future (winter) survival. Once I estimated it to be 5%. But it was about 10 years ago, when my bees were "more normal".


Thank you for that 5% number, I'll keep it in the back of my mind as a rule of thumb until something changes and I have more personal experience with the mites and the sequela they cause.



Dorland's Medical Dictionary said:


> *sequela*/se·que·la/(sĕ-kwel´ah)pl._seque´lae [L.] a morbid condition following or occurring as a consequence of another condition or event._


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

many thanks for the feedback everyone.

lee, can you share what you used to knock the mites back in your hives with the high counts, and did you recount afterwards? are you planning a queen change in those next year?

juhani, are you saying that 5% is not as bad now as it used to be? others have discussed seeing colonies become hopelessly infested and then turn it around as if reaching a breaking point. when you say 'might be just about the limit' are you speaking hypothetically or have you observed this to happen? do you find a high percentage of colonies that survive winter with high infestations go on to become 'boom-crashers' the next year?

i too will have to see what predictive value infestation rates have if any and how to incorporate that into the management scheme. i do plan on paying more attention to the broodnests in late summer and will most likely attempt to rescue any colony showing outright pms. i'll probably start a separate yard for these.

it makes more sense to not waste time dealing with dead outs and worrying about how to protect the equipment until spring, not to mention eliminating the potential for spreading from those colonies. these would be great for making next year's splits when queen rearing season rolls around.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

PM'd you squarepeg, rather than talk about treating in the TF forum. 

I haven't recounted yet, looking for some tourists from that county in Florida to do the recounts. 

It seems like a waste to pinch queens who headed a colonies averaging 9 gallons of honey this year. I think I'll let them supersede...Because...I put eight queens grafted from my VP Breeder (VSH) queen at three different locations within a three mile radius of me. Then, asked the new owners to put drone frames in their hives to flood our area with drones next year. We should have good numbers of VSH drones available for supersedure matings and for the queens from my mating NUCs too. Thats all I can do.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

interesting approach lee, looking forward to seeing how that works out for you.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Lee, which breeder did you get?


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> juhani, are you saying that 5% is not as bad now as it used to be? others have discussed seeing colonies become hopelessly infested and then turn it around as if reaching a breaking point. when you say 'might be just about the limit' are you speaking hypothetically or have you observed this to happen? do you find a high percentage of colonies that survive winter with high infestations go on to become 'boom-crashers' the next year?


I just have much more secure feeling about the ability of my bees to survive, or at least most of them. I have seen mite levels drop, so some can do it. I don´t know the exact level, if there is any, but I can imagine it is more around 10 than 5%. 
I don´t have the "boom-crash" type of bees any more, they are not resistant, they just try to concur mites with making lots of brood. It is the natural reaction of being sick I suppose.

Like I say in my blog "I´m just a stubborn beekeeper..."


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

stubborn can be good sometimes juhani. 

can you explain your comment from the blog that making only one nuc per hive is harder on the bees?


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

I mean it seems that my bees are now having more troubles: there are more hives which have difficulty in making progress. I cannot know what is the reason. But this major change in practises ( making max one nuc, instead of several out of one hive) when nothing else has changed, makes it a likely cause. 

I have thought about inbreeding as a cause, and the fact that my bees have become gradually more and more slow in their progress, as they more and more carefully take care of their brood(and mites in there).

When making a lot of nucs, the mite loads are divided and sometimes very unevenly divided. Many nucs, with by change a low mite load, have good changes of thriving several years.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

I have many times tried to figure out what is the effect of making nucs. Is is helping the bees? Say we divide a colony in two halves: although there are less mites in the two parts than there was in the mother colony, the infestation ratio (%) is not lower, it remains the same in the two halves as in the mother colony, if the mites are evenly divided. 

I think making nucs is helping the bees, but for how long? The bottom line question is: can you keep bees treatment free by just making nucs? I think in the long run (5 years?, 10 years?)you cannot. The bees must have some other qualities as well. Making lots of nucs is not the only thing making it possible. It helps the bees in the beginning but not for ever.

( Unless you make nucs on purpose so, that mites will be unevenly divided, that is a different story, cannot say much about that,
I make nucs with whole boxes: if a hive has three boxes of brood (shallow frames 148x448) I take the 2. or 3. box as a nuc. By this I try to take mites from the bees and brood evenly.)


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

I know two operations who tried to split mites away. Splitting as part of a no treatment trial. One tried for 15 years, with about hundred colonies. Did not work out so far. (He believes it, but gets into deep trouble every other year.) Another one, a commercial, tried for some years with 300 production colonies. He stopped it recently, because he can't stand the losses anymore.

As a rule of thumb I make half the number of splits as I have production colonies. Combining brood from two colonies, to make a strong split which receives a ripe queen cell. The weaker the splits are made, the more prone to diseases they are, especially when weakened by mites. (No treatments.)

My survivor colony that made it five years without treatments was a monster hive, living in a longhive without frames, tons of honey and especially: tons of propolis. I let them do their thing. One year I took some of the honey from the outer parts of the hive. The hive broke down the same year.

I discussed the topic _splits as mite factories_ with a friend, and he reckons that colonies with unmated queens allow more drones, which helps distributing the mites between the colonies. This is also true for swarms. I find natural swarms being even more infested with mites than splits. 

I also observed that hives next to a queenless hive, or a failing queen, have a sudden rise in mite population. Most probably bees drift to the queenright hive, and mites with them. I also see more mites in combined colonies. The hives that are really in trouble have had a queenlees/failing queen hive next to them. 

Just some observations, for what it is worth.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> I know two operations who tried to split mites away. Splitting as part of a no treatment trial. One tried for 15 years, with about hundred colonies. Did not work out so far. (He believes it, but gets into deep trouble every other year.) Another one, a commercial, tried for some years with 300 production colonies. He stopped it recently, because he can't stand the losses anymore.
> 
> As a rule I also observed that hives next to a queenless hive, or a failing queen, have a sudden rise in mite population.


Have these beekeepers, who do a lot of splitting, done no other measures ( breeding selection according to mite counts/ isolation matings etc.)? 

Vey interesting, I have also noticed, that hive which is changing queen can lose up t0 90% of its mites, but have never really noticed where these escaping mites go!


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

interesting discussion. i have been using three frames of bees in five frame boxes for mating nucs. it is obvious that the bees end up drifting from the ones that do not end up with a mated queen into the ones that do get a mated queen.

it makes me wonder if in addition to queenlessness whether the lack of (healthy) brood would also cause foragers to drift into neighboring hives that have a better 'smell'. 

up until now i have mostly focused on mites spreading via robbing of weakened colonies. horizontal transmission by drifting from closely adjacent colonies makes a lot sense and is something i will be paying more attention to.

tom seeley has done some work on this, but i was unable to find an actual publication.

https://portal.nifa.usda.gov/web/cr...lutions-to-problems-affecting-bee-health.html


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

When I pollinate my hives are sometimes 20 feet from another beekeeper's hives. He usually pulls his hives from the fields before I do and I catch his drift. We discussed it in the past and he said drift is an easy way to 'transfer' varroa among other things. When I move my hives I sometimes put a nuc or an 8 frame deep in the spot where the hives used to sit and many times I'll get 3 or 4 full frames of straggler bees that would have drifted. As it stands now, all my bees can go at least 2 years without any sort of treatment (OAV). I've also had bees on a trailer, sealed up, and had local hitchhiker bees all over the hives trying to get into the boxes. Drift happens.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

that's a lot of stragglers alright. can you share what triggers your decision to use oav and when in the season you apply it? have you been able to associate any high infestations coming in with drifters for the other beekeepers colonies?


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

JRG13 said:


> Lee, which breeder did you get?


VP Queens' VSH Italian. Adam was helpful and willing to spend time discussing my situation and unhurriedly provided advice about which of his breeder queens would work best for me. 

P.S. Another thread touching on your questions squarepeg, is here.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Lburou said:


> Another thread touching on your questions squarepeg, is here.


:scratch:



rwurster said:


> As it stands now, all my bees can go *at least* 2 years without any sort of treatment


(emphasis mine) 

so in the context of treatment free..... 

i was intrigued by this statement, and how it might relate to the concept of 'threshold' that we were kicking around a few posts back.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

squarepeg said:


> :scratch:


That link talks about treatment thresholds used by commercials, Squarepeg. Thought it talks directly to the 'thresholds' you referred to in #29.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood lee, although i think they are discussing post treatment counts there, but it's all good. 

i'm still interested in hearing about rwurster's approach and how he decides when or if a colony that has been treatment free for two years or more needs help. hopefully he will get a chance to share it with us either here or over there.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

As the regulars on these threads know, I run a TF test apiary stocked with hopeful swarms (and such). However, if these colonies exhibit DWV, crawlers or similar symptoms of PMS, the colonies are removed and treated to salvage my investment. Not all colonies given heroic efforts make a recovery (as symptomatic DWV is hard to recover from in September).

The logic here is 1) the apiary is isolated (and so forms a semi-closed) population, removing the diseased colonies is equivalent to euthanizing the cull. 2) No way I could continue with the experiment if I was sacrificing $1500-2500 in value every single year.

I do a 1/4 cup alcohol wash on the "flunk outs", for baseline after I attempt the recovery process. In these cases, the wash only documents the next stage, and is not the primary selection tool-- the hive sickness has already made the decision. I use 10 per 1/4 cup as a threshold to second guess the selection, but virtually every hive is above this bar, so its not really a primary benchmark.

The practical advice I have for the Square Peg, is consider the whole apiary as the experimental unit. *A failing hive will spread its illnesses* (via drift, rob out, unexplained infective vectors) to the whole apiary. If you have hives on the decline -- they are not contributing to a successful sustaining of the whole TF yard -- remove them now and isolate them into their own world.

I strongly believe that running your own comparisons returns rationality to the TF-Medicated divide. You will learn more about the bees when you have a controlled set of comparisons to make.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

JWChesnut said:


> I use 10 per 1/4 cup as a threshold to second guess the selection, but virtually every hive is above this bar, so its not really a primary benchmark.


My best breeder had 6 this year (bad year), but 15 is about the limit, no grafts above that.


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

squarepeg said:


> have you been able to associate any high infestations coming in with drifters for the other beekeepers colonies?


I have noticed that drifting bees tend to go into basically 1 hive as I'll have 1 hive that really loads up with them. I don't think the drifters have more of a mite load than mine do (the other guy treats for mites in the fall) but the large influx of bees might help tip the balance in favor of the mites. Next year Ill mark the hive that catches the drift if there's obvious evidence that the hive has caught a lot of drifting bees and see if it needs to be hit with oav in the fall. I didn't use oav on any of my hives this year, including my 'oav treated' yard. Seeing DWV is what prompts me to do more inspections and a sugar roll to determine if I need to use OAV on them.

Some of my colonies have never had OAV used on them and they still boom, two are going into their 4th year TF. One thing to consider is how much someone who treated would save by only having to treat every other year (for mites), and when they did have to treat, the treatment only costs about $0.20 per hive. The truly TF bees I seek are still not within reach but this seems to be an important first step towards that goal. Even if I never achieve the goal, I feel Im in a better position than someone who has to treat every year. Now, if my hives got some disease I would do whatever I had to do to make them healthy and if I pollinated almonds I would definitely innoculate every hive I had going into that mess


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

JWChesnut said:


> if these colonies exhibit DWV, crawlers or similar symptoms of PMS, the colonies are removed and treated to salvage my investment. Not all colonies given heroic efforts make a recovery (as symptomatic DWV is hard to recover from in September).


understood jwc. can you tell us what percentage of tf colonies in your experimental yard succumb, what percentage of those are successfully rehabilitated, and what measures you have found to be most effective at turning them around?

i like the idea of removing the colonies that are overtly sick to a 'hospital yard', especially now that i understand that preventing robbing may not be enough to prevent spreading. so far my losses have been low enough that it has been easier to make them up with spring splits than to attempt 'heroic' rescue efforts. if the losses increase and it may make your sense to either adopt your approach or just go ahead and euthanize. at this time i am not seeing any dwv, crawlers, and only have sick brood in one hive.

i do have a few colonies that are low in population and light on stores that are not showing any overt disease. i am wondering however if it has more to do with the conditions this year. all of my colonies in both yards are lighter than usual at the end of our fall flow, and this is the case with three other apiaries that i know of in my general area.

i have already identified mite loads much higher than most are reporting as well above threshold and have even been described as a 'death sentence'. these high infestations have not caused the visible maladies that you use to remove colonies from your experimental yard. i'm not really sure if that means anything or not, but it will be interesting to see how the overwinter.

i appreciate your comments.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

rwurster said:


> Seeing DWV is what prompts me to do more inspections and a sugar roll to determine if I need to use OAV on them.
> 
> Some of my colonies have never had OAV used on them and they still boom, two are going into their 4th year TF.


that's awesome. what kind of stock are you running, and what % infestation on your sugar rolls prompts you to use oav?


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Juhani Lunden said:


> I think making nucs is helping the bees, but for how long? The bottom line question is: can you keep bees treatment free by just making nucs?


I also think hard about this. In my case the aim is to make increase without helping the bees with their varroa problem. Otherwise it spoils my evaluations.

Mike (UK)


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Lburou said:


> Randy Oliver, I think, reports about 2% doesn't he?


came across this today lee:

"Update Sept 2014:

Due to their huge variability, any single stickyboard count is nearly meaningless.

The best assessment by far is by alcohol wash or sugar shake of 1/2 cup (about 315) bees. I’m currently collecting data to see whether it’s better to take the sample from the broodnest or honey frames (higher counts on brood frames, but perhaps more consistent from honey frames).

At less than 2 mites per 100 bees (6 in an alcohol wash), virus transmission by mites is not a major issue. At 5 per 100 (16 in a wash), some viruses begin to go epidemic. At 15/100, colonies generally start to go into a death spiral.

The most important time to sample is between August 15 and the onset of winter."

quoted from:

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/first-year-care-for-your-nuc/


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

R.Oliver via squarepeg said:


> The best assessment by far is by alcohol wash or sugar shake of 1/2 cup (about 315) bees.


But it is not infallible neither. I took a sample of 1,000 bees and found: 










So while the overall picture is right, low or high infestation, the total amount can only be a sophisticated guess. About 400 times more was found after the treatment than I estimated in a hive recently. Measured 16 mites per 1,000 bees. Had about 12,000 bees in that hive, makes 192 mites in total. In the weeks after treatment a total of 736 mites dropped to the floor. :scratch:

The other open question to me is, the number of bees in a cup. While I found that my cup of bees contains 500 bees, which you find more or less in the literature (100 ml = 50 g of bees = 500 bees), other counted less bees. There is a variance in weight and size of bees, even within a season, so you don't really know if you have 300 bees or 500 bees in your cup. Pretty difficult. Pretty significant a difference, too.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

interesting bernhard. for the counts i reported here i actually took the time to count the bees in the sample which is something that may not be practical for larger operations.

i'm leaning toward paying more attention for signs of overt disease as opposed to mite counts as discussed by jwc, i.e. dwv, crawlers, sick brood, shotty patterns ect. although i may continue to sample just to see how much or how little of a correlation there is.

the two colonies reported in this thread appeared to get through the fall brood up and put up adequate stores for winter with counts > 10%, it will be interesting to see how they fare over winter.

(the quote in your last post is actually randy oliver's comment rather than mine.)


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> . Measured 16 mites per 1,000 bees. Had about 12,000 bees in that hive, makes 192 mites in total. In the weeks after treatment a total of 736 mites dropped to the floor.


JWChesnut wrote that he recons 10 (in 300 bees) as a limit for an acceptable limit. That is about the same by me.

I take sample from a brood box, first brood frame (starting inspection from one side) with both capped and open brood.

736/12000= 6,1% infestation, a bit high for me


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

the 10.7% and 13.4% reported on these two hives were taken after most of the fall brood had emerged. it's hard to say how much lower the counts would have been a month prior when there was active brooding going on. i see that i need to sample earlier next year and pay closer attention to the brood pattern.


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

In a German study they fond out, that sick bees are more prone to fly out and not come back.

That might be one strategy to get rid of them, and this could work during winter, too.

(My blog on 3.4.2010)


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

the recent arctic blast made its way through here and temps are just now moderating in its wake. i've got one hive (one of my strongest and heaviest after what little fall flow we had) with a few dwv crawling around out in front, but other than that there is still strong cluster roar by stethoscope in 18 out of 18. i've got a couple that are light and they will receive some donated honey frames tomorrow.

looking back on it i didn't realize there was not much nectar coming in on the fall flow because i wasn't looking inside nor weighing until it was pretty much over. i see now why my drones disappeared so much earlier than other keepers (even to my north) were reporting. i also see now that some of the colonies that i thought were dwindling were actually just adjusting population to forage availability to optimize for overwintering.

the next month or so should tell the tale with regard to whether or not the high mite counts prevented the colonies from getting off a sufficient cluster of winter bees. i've got plenty of honey to go around with as many hives too heavy as there are hives too light, but i'm entertaining the idea of throwing some protein patties on toward the end of february if the clusters coming out of winter are smaller than they have been in previous years. i'd like to get them strong enough to take cut down splits from most come april.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i went out and took a listen on this eve of the winter solstice and found there are still 18 out of 18 hives with live bees. 

there is one (a swarm caught this year that issued from one of my 2013 grafted colonies) that finished the season stronger and heavier than the rest and it has the loudest cluster roar of them all. 

there is another one (also a caught swarm this year but not sure which hive it issued from) that has puttered along all season and it has the quietest roar of the bunch. i won't be surprised (or saddened) if this one doesn't make it.

all of the others sound pretty much similar to each other, and all but one sound like are still in the bottom box. the three that i sampled with the high mite counts (which were likely representative of all hives in the yard) don't appear to be doing any differently than the rest.

hive weights changed very little from the end of october to the end of november with some hives loosing a few pounds and some hives acutally gaining a few pounds, (probably on the trickle down of the aster). no obvious robbing has been seen.

i'll weigh them again at the end of the month, and i've got a super or so of honey in the freezer that i'll distribute among the lightest ones. if more is needed there are a few hives in the yard that have more than enough honey and can donate some.

i'm hoping to get a nice warm day sometime in mid to late january to open them up and grade the cluster sizes and perhaps start checkerboarding the supers.


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

I moved two 2 story nucs to an enclosed area where I usually winter my nucs. Both weighed an easy 50# and both have 6 -1 1/4 inch screened holes in the bottom of them (for ventilation when I capture swarms). There were tons of dead mites underneath both nucs. Both are in my tf apiary but no way to tell when the mites died. I haven't moved either since I captured both swarms in early summer, just super-ed them when they needed it. I can't wait to inspect them in the spring regardless of if they make it or not, but I hope they do


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

that's interesting rwurster. maybe some of this going in your hives:

http://www.allmorgan.com/greg-hunt-purdue-university-varroa-biting-bees/


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

I've looked at a lot of my "wild swarm" mite drop, and do not see the leg biting present. If that behavior is heritable, I wish it would get to the west coast pronto.

Untreated mites show a sticky glandular secretion on the last leg segment (go to >30x on your scope). When the mites have been treated with Formic, the glandular secretion is not present. I believe the secretion may be essential for the phoretic mites to hold on to the bee hair, and its absence may make the bee's grooming easier. 

Really fine dusts (I used milled dry clay) clog the glandular secretion, which may account for the powdered sugar efficacy. I know a British firm sold an ultra-fine carnuba wax product as a powdered sugar analog for mites.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

not sure if it is heritable jwc, but here is at least one breeder using it as a selection criterian:

http://www.carpentersapiaries.com/Pages/QueenBreedingProgram.aspx


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

squarepeg said:


> not sure if it is heritable jwc, but here is at least one breeder using it as a selection criterian:
> 
> http://www.carpentersapiaries.com/Pages/QueenBreedingProgram.aspx


The good Mr Carpenter reports this allogrooming trait is a dominant trait. I have one of his queens overwintering now, will know how well she did at the first sampling this coming spring. If she does overwinter well, I'll expand the presence of these genes here at home. A shotgun approach works for me.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

* Re: more tf mite counts*

very cool lee, i would be interested in hearing how that colony does. many thanks.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

*Re:  Re: more tf mite counts*

I have had colonies that started cluster low in the bottom deep and never came up for the dry sugar. Others seemed more active up higher. I listen mostly at the upper entrances so the ones clustered higher seemed louder. By spring time there seemed little difference in strength. My question is whether the noise level is a true indicator this time of year for whole term winter survival.

The correlation between hive weight decrease would seem to be related to population size but it sticks in my mind having read that bees carrying a higher mite load are more active (noisy?) and consume stores quicker. It sure would be nice to have a mechanism to do running mite levels during the winter clustered period. Do the mite chewing bees manage to virtually rid themselves of mites before early brood up starts? 

I have too small a sample size to make any worthwhile conclusions so the niggling contradictions are not easy to resolve. I sure appreciate seeing documented conditions with untreated hives as it helps to understand what the coping mechanisms might be.


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

*Re:  Re: more tf mite counts*

Some questions about grooming behaviour:
"_The type of damage recorded for grooming behaviour included mutilated legs and dorsal shields as well as dimples in the dorsal shields. The latter has recently been shown to also result from birth defects (Davis 2009), and therefore the actual damages caused by bees may have been overestimated in this study. Bees can also damage already-dead mites (Rosenkranz et al.1997), and the actual level of bee damages to vital mites is difficult to estimate from debris observations._" in https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/fil...l-01003560.pdf


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

squarepeg said:


> http://www.allmorgan.com/greg-hunt-purdue-university-varroa-biting-bees/


Thank U sq.. Very interesting video.
Two aspects aroused my attention :
- Counting the fallen mites can be very misleading (1 mite fallen / 5 days vs. 142 mites fallen/1 day);
- The technical to begin evaluating the VSH behavior in our hives (very important for my project).


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## rwurster (Oct 30, 2010)

I thought the drop out of the holes at the bottom was cappings but they were too brown. I meant to scoop them up and look at them with a magnifying glass but forgot  The 'bottom boards' are attached and there's no bottom entrance. My nucs, and hives, have a warm side opening. There should be lots of evidence on the bottom board but I'm not cracking hives until a warm day in late winter/early spring. Only 2 more months before brooding starts here


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

*Re:  Re: more tf mite counts*



crofter said:


> Do the mite chewing bees manage to virtually rid themselves of mites before early brood up starts?


not sure crofter, but i think it may be so. i inadvertently broke open burr drone cells that were built in the frame gap between boxes on just about every hive when doing my early season inspections last spring. i looked carefully at those drone larvae and even pulled a few more out here and there. believe it or not i was only able to find one mite in all of those inspections. i'll try to sample a few with alcohol wash next spring, perhaps the same three i sampled this fall, for comparison's sake.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Thank U sq.. Very interesting video.
> Two aspects aroused my attention :
> - Counting the fallen mites can be very misleading (1 mite fallen / 5 days vs. 142 mites fallen/1 day);
> - The technical to begin evaluating the VSH behavior in our hives (very important for my project).


:thumbsup:


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

squarepeg said:


> http://www.carpentersapiaries.com/Pages/QueenBreedingProgram.aspx



CCD resistant?


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

JWChesnut said:


> I've looked at a lot of my "wild swarm" mite drop, and do not see the leg biting present. If that behavior is heritable, I wish it would get to the west coast pronto.


I remember a lot of talk and writings about bees biting mites and their legs, 10-15 years ago. Some bee breeders used microscopes to study debris from hive bottoms and counted percentages of damaged mites. As far as I know nobody talks about this phenomena or uses "bees biting mites" as a selection criteria any more in Europe.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Two aspects aroused my attention :
> - The technical to begin evaluating the VSH behavior in our hives (very important for my project).


Eduardo,

Did you follow Dean Stiglitz's (Deknow's) argument in a recent thread (and you-tube movie) in which he pointed out (among other things) that to focus on vhs alone was neglect other mechanisms of combatting mites?

Perhaps you decided on balance this was as good a place to start as any?

Mike (UK)


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

mike bispham said:


> Did you follow Dean Stiglitz's (Deknow's) argument in a recent thread (and you-tube movie) in which he pointed out (among other things) that to focus on vhs alone was neglect other mechanisms of combatting mites?


No Mike, I did not realize. If you direct me to the link I'll see it for sure. I am aware that there are other mechanisms of resistance/tolerance to varroa (http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?305871-Resistance-to-varroa-what-mechanisms and "Biology and control of Varroa destructor" by Peter Rosenkranz, Pia Aumeier, Bettina Ziegelmann).



> Perhaps you decided on balance this was as good a place to start as any?


Yes, you are follow my thoughts . It's a start. What my observations tell me is that I can have some hives with the VSH trait (about 3 %) . I have noticed that some colonies uncap pupae at the stage of purple eyes. Unfortunately in my notes I registered only 4 colonies. Are a few more, but I will have to register them.

My big question right now is whether I will be able of managing my time in order to free up some time for this new work front. But I am convinced that making better management of my time this project will start (only a pilot study for now) and will give me great pleasure. In the meantime I will continue my learning process. I'm just scratching the surface.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

AstroBee said:


> CCD resistant?


had to scratch my head on that one too ab.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

AstroBee said:


> CCD resistant?


AstroBee and Squarepeg, I was reading recently about CCD and one government researcher felt the causes of CCD may be contagious -Perhaps an undiscovered contagion, HERE is a link to a study indirectly addressing the subject of CCD and it being contagious. 

If that is true, a strain of bees could be CCD resistant. In my view, this should cause reevaluation of how we reuse equipment contaminated with those pathogens, even when/if we combine a weak colony with a strong one.....Those are my thoughts anyway.


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## mike bispham (May 23, 2009)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> No Mike, I did not realize. If you direct me to the link I'll see it for sure.


'VHS Breeding' is the thread title. Its a long one, but worth perservering - there is input there from some very experienced vhs breeders:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?277652-VSH-Breeding&highlight=deknow

There's also an interesting talk on breeding for vsh by Dean Stiglitz here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqNjbwCQB4Q 

He's critical (as I understand it) both of claims of vsh by breeders (which is the topic of the thread above), and, in the talk/movie, of the idea of focusing on vsh alone. Like me, he feels that untreated productivity supplies the best measure of a colony/queen for selection purposes.

The discussion on vhs starts at about 38:00 (wait for the coloured diagrams to disappear) ...

Thanks for the link again Eduardo,

Mike (UK)


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

Thanks Mike! Precious alerts Dean, thank you. I hope in the medium term do not pour the baby out with the water from the shower.

As I mentioned already I have 4 colonies referenced that seem to have the VSH trait and a few more. I think I have some more colonies with this feature or other features that express the resistance/tolerance to varroa. I think that the fact of I using acaricides these traits will be hidden .

My idea is to come up with a selection program for the selection of these traits in a small group 15-20 colonies in a relatively isolated apiary .
In addition to select based VSH ​​behavior of the expression I'm thinking select based on the mites count by washing the bees.

Regarding the mites count I have some questions for which I thank your views :
- In which times of the year you do the scores and how many per year?
- The threshold of 8% to 10 % with mites bee acceptable?
- Threshold is constant throughout the year or we need to modify it in accordance with the time of year and the colony dynamics? In what way?


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## BeesFromPoland (Dec 27, 2014)

Juhani Lunden said:


> I remember a lot of talk and writings about bees biting mites and their legs, 10-15 years ago. Some bee breeders used microscopes to study debris from hive bottoms and counted percentages of damaged mites. As far as I know nobody talks about this phenomena or uses "bees biting mites" as a selection criteria any more in Europe.


how about this one? 
http://www.voralpenhonig.at/default_en.htm


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

BeesFromPoland said:


> how about this one?
> http://www.voralpenhonig.at/default_en.htm


Wallners bees were tested in Finland by the MTT (Agricultural Reseach Center of Finland). No resistance was found.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>No resistance was found.

In know of no definitive test for Varroa resistance. Especially since we don't even know for sure what combination of traits it takes to have resistance. How were they tested?


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## Juhani Lunden (Oct 3, 2013)

Well, to be honest, bee research in Finland is not the best funded... at the moment there is not one person in the whole country who gets his salary doing research with bees.

I just made that reply to tell that Wallners work was well noticed 10-15 years ago. There was a big fuss about his bees. For some reason nobody speaks about them any more. A lot of talking of bees biting mites and breeders looking in debris to count the percentages of damaged mites. I suspect it takes too much work, plus that it is not a reliable essay to measure varroa resistance. Ants going on hive bottoms are a nuisance making error to results. I remember his bees were tested in some other country as well, similar results.

>How were they tested? 
I suspect of some short time(1 year or so) lasting experiment, where the mite increase was measured, but it is just a guess.


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Regarding the mites count I have some questions for which I thank your views :
> - In which times of the year you do the scores and how many per year?
> - The threshold of 8% to 10 % with mites bee acceptable?
> - Threshold is constant throughout the year or we need to modify it in accordance with the time of year and the colony dynamics? In what way?


I apologize for asking a question a bit unreasonable . Only later I realized that many of the TF beekeepers does not count the mites. As such I have been doing some research. Many large of the "fathers " of resistant bees in Europe refer 5 % as the threshold. This another very recent study seems to point in the same direction with the advantage of a count over the most critical months. I leave this reference for those who may be interested .

"The experiment began in May with uniform colonies having uniform infestation of V. destructor. V. destructor infestations measured as the percentage of adult bees infested in the Australian lines and the Italian stock rose from less than 10% in August to over 25% in October. From August to November, 44% of both the Australian and Italian colonies died while strongly exhibiting symptoms of parasitic mite syndrome. In contrast, RHB and VSH colonies displayed comparative resistance to V. destructor. *Their infestation rates rose from about 5% in August to 10% (RHB) and 14% (VSH) in October*. Likely, some of this increase resulted from invasion pressure by mites from the dying Australian and Italian colonies. During the August to November period, 4.4% of the RHB and 14.3% of the VSH colonies died." in Responses to Varroa destructor and Nosema ceranae by several commercial strains of Australian and North American honeybees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
Thomas E Rinderer, Benjamin P Oldroyd, Amanda M Frake, Lilia I de Guzman and Lelania Bourgeois, Australian Journal of Entomology (2012)


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

interesting eduardo, many thanks. from what i can tell so far it looks like resistant bees are tolerating 10 - 15% infestation rate prior to fall build up.


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## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

squarepeg said:


> it looks like resistant bees are tolerating 10 - 15% infestation rate prior to fall build up.


Not at all sq. I have to take into account the climatic differences (mainly minimum temperatures and air humidity). I'll see if I can get this data.


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