# mites have exploded



## snl

If you still have brood and they’re flying, I’d go for every 5 days (vs 7).


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## missybee

Thanks we will do that, there is still brood and they are still flying.


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## beepro

Yes, in a consolidated brood nest the mites will concentrate on the newly emerged bees. If the
first round of mites from these new bees are not under control then they will crashed the hives during
the early Spring time expansion. That was what happened to my crashed hives on my 3rd season of going 
no treatment. Now I just removed the mites while they are still inside the cap broods. After the brood consolidation there
will be fewer to no mites in there. These are the small nuc hives with only 2-3 frame of bees. Yup, mites are extremely 
destructive when the bees are still brooding up on the big fat winter bees. I will not let the mites take a foot hold during
this time.


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## missybee

I thought we were doing good. Guess the numbers show we missed this boat.........but jumping on treatment right now. We sent in the samples mid October, Mid September is when the numbers where low, so in that 30 days the mites went insane. 

Would it be better to treat with something in July-Sept like we did and then just start smacking them with OAV early October. 
A beekeep here said the same thing is happening to his hives, mite explosion after August-Sept treatment and very low readings.

I would love to be treatment free, can't see it happening.


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## 1102009

I´m sorry, missy bee, good luck!

I´m not following all posts but in autumn and fall there can be much bee drifting. Are you isolated? The hive watchers will accept foragers from other colonies much more then.
If brood and bee numbers are reduced the infestation can rise enormously and suddenly.

I believe a sample of 100 bees is nor sufficient to count the infestation. Most people use 300 bees and count the dropped mites too.


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## missybee

We are not aware of hives around us, but there could be. We are pretty rural. Farm fields, woods small neighborhoods. Cows horses etc

Our own hives could have infested our own, if that makes sense. We might have had one with a mite explosion then the bees drifted. 

The sample of 100 is what the study required.


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## Branman

I agree, I bet your hives went and robbed some neighbor's mite bomb hives and picked up a ton of hitchhikers. Randy Oliver and Jennifer Berry did an experiment with the shop towels and had some very odd results like yours with one set of hives. Their hypothesis for the strange data was that nearby hives died out and the studied hives robbed out the honey and took back all the mites as well.


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## Branman

Check out

https://youtu.be/R5LxTf-EYIY

around the 3:17 mark. Varroa can run pretty fast. When they're on the comb without a host I've seen them run twice as fast as that. They're just chilling in the hive when a hive absconds or dies out and they're just waiting to hitch a ride on the bees that come check things out. Can lead to cascading hive failures.


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## beemandan

Tis the time of year that robbing prevails. The bees still flying but little or no forage. Any weak colonies….feral or kept….within foraging distance will be targets. The robbers return with honey and mites. It is actually quite common, I’m afraid.
Assuming that you treated all of your hives…not just those in the trial….it isn’t anything you’ve done wrong.


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## Dave Burrup

My bet would b eon the robbing hitchhiker scenario.


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## enjambres

Also as the brood production tapers off in the fall, a greater percentage of the total mites in the hive become phoretic, so they'll be on the bodies of bees being sampled. 

Despite being in a sentinel group, you would be wise to do regular sugar rolls all summer long, and weekly sticky boards year round. This will give you a true and "real time" picture of the mites population dynamics.

You can see changes like this signaled weeks ahead of time if you do your own monitoring.

I keep OAVing throughout the fall based on monitoring numbers.

Nancy


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## Dan the bee guy

My bet would be on resistant mites. Rotating treatments would be the way to go after this. I went to OAV after the MAQS didn't do the job. Had huge mite fall useing OAV every 4 days for two months.


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## dudelt

Reinfestation is often a major problem after treatment. My Italian hives this year all showed major problems. My Carni and mutt hives had no issues. Based on Italian bees being more prone to robbing, my personal thoughts are that the mites are being brought in by my bees that are robbing, not foreign bees coming to my hives.


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## beemandan

Dan the bee guy said:


> My bet would be on resistant mites.


What makes you think that?


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## missybee

enjambres said:


> Also as the brood production tapers off in the fall, a greater percentage of the total mites in the hive become phoretic, so they'll be on the bodies of bees being sampled.
> 
> Despite being in a sentinel group, you would be wise to do regular sugar rolls all summer long, and weekly sticky boards year round. This will give you a true and "real time" picture of the mites population dynamics.
> 
> You can see changes like this signaled weeks ahead of time if you do your own monitoring.
> 
> I keep OAVing throughout the fall based on monitoring numbers.
> 
> Nancy


We have not been the best about testing. I joined the group to be "forced" into being a better tester. Once I commit to something I do it. 
But, like you are saying, it would have been better that we saw that day the mites were exploding rather than lose two weeks waiting for the results. We never thought it would come back as bad as it did. 

We do treat all of our hives, I have , off and on, done sticky boards. We are going to start doing sugar rolls on a scheduled basis. We have only lost one hive, in 3 years, over winter, most likely mites. So we got to thinking what we were doing was good enough. This is a wake up knock on the old head. I hope we don't lose any of them.


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## Kuro

missybee said:


> Here are the numbers for September and then October. I am totally shocked at the increase in mites. I was not expecting this outcome.
> 
> View attachment 36268


5-25 fold increase of mites/month around September-October is just like what happened to me in this and the last season.

Last year, after not-very-effective treatment of my 3 hives with every-4-day-OAV in August, remaining mites almost precisely doubled per week during September (as measured by 48hr natural drop) and I had to treat again in early October. This year, I treated 2 hives with MAQS in mid August which brought mites to such low levels, that I thought even if they double per week (I began to detect mites in mid September which roughly doubled per week) I would not have to do anything until winter. But then in mid October mite drops in one hive jumped from 14 to 116 within a week (they robbed some infested colonies?). I just could not stand watching anymore and put Apivar strips. The only season I got away with two treatments/year was my first year 2015, when I treated as late as mid September (with MAQS) followed by OAV in winter.


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## missybee

Thanks for the info. 
We only use OAV when the brood level has lowered. We did a treatment in February this year, had almost no mites until the July reading. So we started treating in late July as soon as the supers where removed. Thought we would make it until they clustered, for the next treatment, but nope lol


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## Oldtimer

Agree with most of the other posts. The rate of increase shown, is not possible just by natural increase alone. 

As per Enjambres, once brood raising is over, you get an increase in phoretic mites. However you say there is still brood so that may not be a factor. My money is on drift, there may be collapsing hives in your vicinity your bees have robbed.

Next year, it would pay to bear this in mind and treat a bit later, plus leave the strips in for a long time, if that is possible.


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## missybee

Thanks, we will do that, we had them in for around 50 days, moved the strips to follow the brood. 

We have not gotten really cold yet, a few dips at night, but then today it was 77f. They have done a few clusters, usually flying every day.


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## Oldtimer

Me, I leave the strips in 8 to 10 weeks. Just covers over that robbing period a bit better.


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## missybee

We will change our practice. I was going by the instructions, even had it on my calendar so I would not forget to remove lol................. 

Thanks


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## msl

I am interested in what your numbers mean...
Ie you have a hive with 1.3 that jumps to 6.1, well..... thats not mites per sample unless you have some wicked mite biters choping them up :lpf:, the sample was 100 so its not mites pe 100, or 300, or % infestation....or any of the common ways to express mite loads so I am interested in what the metric was.
Here were my counts for the year, mites per 300 bees, Oct was broodless







The guy 100' from me restarted 18 hives from packages after 100% loses last winter. He said he lost 4 in sept and has a bunch that are weak, last week when I got the chance to do a roll on one of his strong hives it was some were above 50 mites per 300 bees.
yep I likely got bombed, and its not the 1st time, and wont be the last. This is why I run counts and IPM as my path to TF, Hives 2 and 3 show promise compared to one I drooped from the selection program in july for hitting 19 mites. However I felt to hit the whole yard with OAD to protect the stock form the infux of mites from out side sources.


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## Dan the bee guy

beemandan said:


> What makes you think that?


Resistance is starting to show up in places, it's the time of year that more mites are phoretic, missy said they are rural less likely for robbing or drifting. Sometime it's easy to blame the other guy if your not sure of what's going on.


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## Mike Gillmore

Dan the bee guy said:


> Resistance is starting to show up in places,


So, she's been keeping bees for a year or two ... and the mites are already resistant to OAV? I find that a bit hard to believe. I've been using OAV exclusively for several years and have yet to see any signs of resistance. 

Like you said, sometimes it's easy to blame it on something else if you're not sure what's going on.


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## missybee

msl said:


> I am interested in what your numbers mean...
> Ie you have a hive with 1.3 that jumps to 6.1, well..... thats not mites per sample unless you have some wicked mite biters choping them up :lpf:, the sample was 100 so its not mites pe 100, or 300, or % infestation....or any of the common ways to express mite loads so I am interested in what the metric was.
> .


They have us send in 100 bees i.e. a cup full of bees every month to them. Which equates to about 100 bees. We put them in alcohol. 
They then do counts of mites and nosema spores. We fill out a form with other data, observation of hive strength etc.
To me that is mites per 100 bees. Which is an indicator of the amount of mites overall in the hive.


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## 1102009

It´s hard to too such monitoring because of to be careful of the queen.
Still, most phoretic mites are on the nurse bees.
If you do samples with older bees this would probably show a lower rate.


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## 1102009

Missy, can you give some information about the nosema spores? 
Could be some correlations.....


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## missybee

Mike Gillmore said:


> So, she's been keeping bees for a year or two ... and the mites are already resistant to OAV? I find that a bit hard to believe. I've been using OAV exclusively for several years and have yet to see any signs of resistance.
> 
> Like you said, sometimes it's easy to blame it on something else if you're not sure what's going on.


This was our fourth summer with bees, the first year we used hopguard 11, lost a hive over winter. 
The second year we did OAV, only. Then at one of our state meetings about mites, we decided we should use OAV then something else, then OAV. 

Last year, 2016, we did a OAV in late winter, apivar after the supers were removed, then no other treatment, we had to leave town for a three months, we left in late September. No loses, but we had two hives with a handful of bees (like one frame of bees) when we checked them in early February, on the 8th, 2017, bottom board covered with dead bees. We immediately did a OAV on all of the hives, they all were low brood levels. The two with a handful of bees dropped a bunch of mites, the rest did not. Those two hives rebounded and were stellar honey producers. 
All of the hives did good in honey, we had a great harvest!

This year, 2017, started with that OAV in FEB, apivar put in July, now going to OAV them this month and most likely one more hit of OAV in December.

This was our first year we have been good about testing for mites, one of the reasons I joined the program. To get better in caring for the bees. 

The one beekeeper in our area, that we know of, quit this year, we now have their hives, two. We did treat them for mites with apivar as soon as we moved them over to our yard, early August. They were one mile from our house. There could be others but we are not aware of any. 

This was how our mite load showed from the start of the study, May of this year. Hive four spiked with the supers on, we treated as soon as we pulled them off. Four of our hives had low mites levels until this hit in October.


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## missybee

SiWolKe said:


> Missy, can you give some information about the nosema spores?
> Could be some correlations.....


Here is the chart with those spores.


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## missybee

SiWolKe said:


> It´s hard to too such monitoring because of to be careful of the queen.
> Still, most phoretic mites are on the nurse bees.
> If you do samples with older bees this would probably show a lower rate.


We pull a frame with wet brood, eggs, nurse bees. I shake it into a big tub where I stare at it for xx minutes to see if the queen was missed when I look at the frame I am using. Then scoop up a cup of bees which are put into a bottle with alcohol to send to them. 

One time, whew! I spotted the queen in the tub, scooped her up, she flew! managed to grab her just as she took off, put her back in the hive and watched her crawl back into the frames. An almost ...............dead queen.


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## Eduardo Gomes

SiWolKe said:


> It´s hard to too such monitoring because of to be careful of the queen.
> Still, most phoretic mites are on the nurse bees.
> If you do samples with older bees this would probably show a lower rate.


If I had to do sampling the bees I would do like Randy Oliver not to take such a risk of eliminating the queen.

"[…] nurse bees (blue and red) are evenly distributed across the frames. Other studies, including my own observations, confirm. So it’s pointless to risk harming the queen by pulling out a brood frame, simply in order to obtain a sample of nurse bees. By shaking any bee sample from near the broodnest into a tub, and then allowing the older bees to fly off, one can obtain a behaviorally-sorted sample of nurse bees." source: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/the-varroa-problem-part-10/


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## Dan the bee guy

Mike Gillmore said:


> So, she's been keeping bees for a year or two ... and the mites are already resistant to OAV? I find that a bit hard to believe. I've been using OAV exclusively for several years and have yet to see any signs of resistance.
> 
> Like you said, sometimes it's easy to blame it on something else if you're not sure what's going on.


She Treated with Apivar not OAV and the Apivar failed her. Resistance to Apivar is showing up . She is doing a good thing by useing differant treatments.


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## beemandan

missybee said:


> They have us send in 100 bees i.e. a cup full of bees every month to them. Which equates to about 100 bees.


If it is an ordinary measuring cup....one cup is a lot more than 100 bees. All the same...they count mites and bees and then compute the percentage.


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## beemandan

Dan the bee guy said:


> Resistance is starting to show up in places


The op indicated that the mite counts were very low following the Apivar treatments. A large late season jump can indicate the end of brood rearing but she also said that they still had brood. All the evidence that I read indicated that the Apivar worked fine.


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## wildbranch2007

beemandan said:


> The op indicated that the mite counts were very low following the Apivar treatments. A large late season jump can indicate the end of brood rearing but she also said that they still had brood. All the evidence that I read indicated that the Apivar worked fine.


looks to me like missy is doing a better job at handling the mites than many beeks that I have run across. Finding where the bee bombs come from would be nice so she could show them the light:applause:


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## Branman

wildbranch2007 said:


> looks to me like missy is doing a better job at handling the mites than many beeks that I have run across. Finding where the bee bombs come from would be nice so she could show them the light:applause:


Well put


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## Dan the bee guy

The way I look at it she was just counting phoretic mites in the time that hives have the most brood so you can get low counts. Then just when queen slow down in the fall more mites are phoretic and you see mite populations explode.


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## wildbranch2007

Dan the bee guy said:


> The way I look at it she was just counting phoretic mites in the time that hives have the most brood so you can get low counts. Then just when queen slow down in the fall more mites are phoretic and you see mite populations explode.


the formula that was taught by Randy Oliver, and most people use takes into account the % of mites that are under the capped brood, looking at her charts as the % of capped brood decreased the number of mites didn't go up. so unless she has special mites that breed faster than other peoples, the mites had to come from somewhere. Probably from all the commercial guys moving south with out nets


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## beemandan

Dan the bee guy said:


> The way I look at it she was just counting phoretic mites in the time that hives have the most brood so you can get low counts. Then just when queen slow down in the fall more mites are phoretic and you see mite populations explode.


Let’s think about this. You place Apivar strips into a hive for six to eight weeks. At the end of that period, after two complete brood cycles, the phoretic mite infestation is extremely low. And you believe that somehow the infestation level in the brood was many times higher? 
The evidence indicates that the Apivar worked fine.


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## Dan the bee guy

wildbranch2007 said:


> the formula that was taught by Randy Oliver, and most people use takes into account the % of mites that are under the capped brood, looking at her charts as the % of capped brood decreased the number of mites didn't go up. so unless she has special mites that breed faster than other peoples, the mites had to come from somewhere. Probably from all the commercial guys moving south with out nets


Went over the few charts again looks like they just counted the mites on the bees she sent in. Nowhere did I see number of frames of brood for hives tested. Look at Randy's chart showing the growth of the hive how the mites lag behind then when the queen slows down in the fall you see mites explode in the hive. The number of bees decrease in the fall and also the amount of brood both contributed to the increase of the mite count. If you need an exsample of exponential growth put a penny on a square on checkerboard 2 penny's on the next 4 on the next and so on and so one then tell me when you run out of money.


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## Dan the bee guy

Duplicate


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## missybee

beemandan said:


> The op indicated that the mite counts were very low following the Apivar treatments. A large late season jump can indicate the end of brood rearing but she also said that they still had brood. All the evidence that I read indicated that the Apivar worked fine.


I put Apivar in a few hives on 7/4/17 the rest of the hives 7/13/17. We pulled them around 8/22 and 8/29. The mite count for September remained low. We sent in the sample on 9/13/17. The October sample was mailed on 10/20/17.
When we inspected while we were sampling on 10/19 we did see scattered brood, a few hives a ton of brood, spotted 8 queens, a few drones wandering around. 
The brood was no where like it was in the spring, our hives had 2 plus brood boxes full of brood side to side. They started brooding up heavy in February we were so warm. We did nothing but swarm prevention until mid May. We did need to feed them sugar blocks until April when the dandelions started to bloom all of the hives were out of food.


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## missybee

Dan the bee guy said:


> Went over the few charts again looks like they just counted the mites on the bees she sent in. Nowhere did I see number of frames of brood for hives tested. .


We count the brood and grade the brood with each sample. That is on a different sheet of data. Also give a idea of how many frames of bees we have, subjective, quick estimate of course.


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## Eduardo Gomes

Dan the bee guy said:


> My bet would be on resistant mites. Rotating treatments would be the way to go after this. I went to OAV after the MAQS didn't do the job. Had huge mite fall useing OAV every 4 days for two months.


Dan why formic acid failed? Resistant mites or another reason?

As for others, my bet for missybee scenario is normal fall reinfestation.


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## 1102009

In german forums people post that Apivar is not working.
Therefore most people use the towel method with liquid formic acid, 60% in hot weather, 85% in cold weather. 
They do this as one shock therapy, afterwards they use a vaporizer to do a long-time treatment ( 2-3 weeks). Much danger to the queen though.

There is no resistance of mites against OAV after many years.
Because OAV is not as dangerous it´s used more and more, in summer as in winter. Summer 3 times, Winter one time with liquid Oxalic Acids sugar.
Or they use thymol.

Missy, did you take off the honey supers when you used Apivar?


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## msl

> By shaking any bee sample from near the broodnest into a tub, and then allowing the older bees to fly off, one can obtain a behaviorally-sorted sample of nurse bees.


Yep, and gives you a 2nd chance to save the queen if you missed her on the frame…I spotted one in the tub this last round!



> They have us send in 100 bees i.e. a cup full of bees every month to them. Which equates to about 100 bees.





> If it is an ordinary measuring cup....one cup is a lot more than 100 bees. All the same...they count mites and bees and then compute the percentage


Yes the issue seems to have been the OP’s understanding of the sample size, if it’s a full cup they are taking a 600 ish bee sample, likely counting the bees, and reporting the findings in per 100 bees.. 
Many people who talk threshold often talk in mites per 300 bee sample (such as how I reported mine) so knowing the metric matters 



> looks to me like missy is doing a better job at handling the mites than many beeks that I have run across. Finding where the bee bombs come from would be nice so she could show them the light





> This was our first year we have been good about testing for mites, one of the reasons I joined the program.


Yep, that’s what having mounthy counts does, forces you to face the facts and act, great job Missy!
Threw the magic of the internet we can go to the BIP https://bip2.beeinformed.org/sentinel look up site MD, Frederick: S17-SADK and see how her neabors in the program are doing, putting her at the 3rd highest advrage in the state. Great for a new beekeper, but room for improvement none the less and a way to judge as to how what your doing is comparing to you neighbors
The BIP is a great program,(I didn't inisaily realize that's what she was talking about) I wish more people would get involved


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## wildbranch2007

Dan the bee guy said:


> Went over the few charts again looks like they just counted the mites on the bees she sent in. Nowhere did I see number of frames of brood for hives tested. Look at Randy's chart showing the growth of the hive how the mites lag behind then when the queen slows down in the fall you see mites explode in the hive. The number of bees decrease in the fall and also the amount of brood both contributed to the increase of the mite count. If you need an exsample of exponential growth put a penny on a square on checkerboard 2 penny's on the next 4 on the next and so on and so one then tell me when you run out of money.


the formula from Randy O's lecture.


> The formula is x/300*100*2.
> x is the number of mites.
> You divide that by 300 because you just alcohol washed 300 bees. That gives you the proportion of phoretic (on the bees) mites per bee in your hive.
> If you multiply that proportion by 100, you turn it into a percent.
> Some people stop there, and just care about the % infestation on adult bees, but other people multiply that value by 2 to account for the mites that are in the brood (which we obviously didn't sample with the alcohol wash). When I attended the Bee Wellness workshop, they recommended multiplying by 2.
> The threshold for treatment that Randy Oliver recommends is 6 mites in a 300-sample alcohol wash. 6 mites would be a 4% infestation using our formula above:
> 6/300*100*2 = 4%


now in Missys case they are adjusting to the # of bees she sent in and also using an adjustment for the # of mites under the brood.


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## msl

> and also using an adjustment for the # of mites under the brood.


they are not, and state they are not.


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## missybee

SiWolKe said:


> Missy, did you take off the honey supers when you used Apivar?


We did not treat with anything while the supers were on. 
The one hive climbed in mite count, #4 in May and higher in June since we had 4 supers on it, we waited it out. We had the Apivar in it 11 days before we did the next mite count. That hive dropped below the threshold in mite count in that 11 days of treatment.


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## missybee

msl said:


> Yep, and gives you a 2nd chance to save the queen if you missed her on the frame…I spotted one in the tub this last round!
> Yes the issue seems to have been the OP’s understanding of the sample size, if it’s a full cup they are taking a 600 ish bee sample, likely counting the bees, and reporting the findings in per 100 bees..
> Many people who talk threshold often talk in mites per 300 bee sample (such as how I reported mine) so knowing the metric matters


Well you are right, I was told they were counting 100 bees, two scoops of 1/2 cup of bees = 1 cup therefore I ASSUMED one cup of bees = 100. 
Learned some more! 

I really take my time looking for the queen. Miss her most of the time on frames full of bees, but in my big tub with them all spread out, she does stand out a bit.


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## beemandan

missybee said:


> That hive dropped below the threshold in mite count in that 11 days of treatment.


I put Apivar in a hive in June. It dropped 4000+ mites in 3 weeks. There may be resistance in some places.....but not everywhere.


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## wildbranch2007

msl said:


> they are not, and state they are not.


whose they?


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## msl

https://beeinformed.org/programs/sentinel-hive-scale-program/


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## wildbranch2007

msl said:


> https://beeinformed.org/programs/sentinel-hive-scale-program/


ya I read it no where do they say how they monitor for mites???


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## msl

As reported by the OP its a cup of bees and if you look at the report she posted the info they give is expressed in mites per 100 bees, no were do they masage the number to come up with a total mites in the brood of the hive, and they caution that what the numbers mean changes with brood off.

For the most part people just use the mites per 100 or mites per 300 for thresholds, no need for extra math. if you hit 5 mites per 100 in July you will be around 10 per hundred in Aug and likly dead by late fall with out intervention.
I


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## wildbranch2007

msl said:


> As reported by the OP its a cup of bees and if you look at the report she posted the info they give is expressed in mites per 100 bees, no were do they masage the number to come up with a total mites in the brood of the hive, and they caution that what the numbers mean changes with brood off.


true I lost track of the fact that they are only reporting # of mites per sample, still not sure about the # of bees in the cup, if it's a 100 that's one thing, if it's 300 that's a lower %, but the report didn't say how many bees, at least I haven't seen it.


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## Dan the bee guy

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Dan why formic acid failed? Resistant mites or another reason?
> 
> As for others, my bet for missybee scenario is normal fall reinfestation.


All I can do is guess. Might have been my error or I got a bad batch maybe it was out of date over a year old I didn't look for a use by date my error. Michael Palmer had post that many more beeks had similar outcomes. The hive that was the problem had similar numbers as hers did produced 5 supers of honey didn't swarm population was crashing during the OAV. Rest assured that everything everybody says here about what happened is a guess and my reason for put that one out there is so we don't miss one.


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## Eduardo Gomes

Dan the bee guy said:


> The hive that was the problem had similar numbers as hers did produced 5 supers of honey didn't swarm population was crashing during the OAV.


Tanks Dan. Let everything run for the best with your colony.


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## missybee

Well I made a mistake in the collections, I was using a 1/2 cup x 2 to equal one cup of bees. 
I was supposed to be using 1/4 cup x 2 i.e. 1/2 cup of bees. I sent my contact person a email this is what she said to me. 

"Each sample you take is 2 scoops with a 1/4 cup scoop to make 1/2 cup which is about 300 bees. We shake the whole sample, count the mites, then weigh 100 bees and the remaining weight to calculate how many bees are in the sample. Then we divide the number of mites to calculate mites/100 bees"


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## missybee

This is two days after a OAV treatment..................


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## snl

Whoever said, wrote or thought OAV does not work or is ineffective just needs to look at post 61 by Missy


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## baybee

snl said:


> Whoever said, wrote or thought OAV does not work or is ineffective just needs to look at post 61 by Missy


 For the sake of people not familiar with OAV:

- OAV effectively kills phoretic mites;
- OAV does nothing to the mites on sealed brood;
- In broodless hives all mites are phoretic;
- In hives with brood up to 80% of mites are under caps (i.e., not exposed to OAV);

When people say OAV doesn't work, they most probably mean that OAV isn't the best choice (if a good choice at all) for hives with brood. If brood is present, one can stop exponential proliferation of mites with multiple OAVs; but is it possible to get below the treatment threshold?


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## snl

baybee said:


> For the sake of people not familiar with OAV:
> 
> - OAV effectively kills phoretic mites;
> - OAV does nothing to the mites on sealed brood;
> - In broodless hives all mites are phoretic;
> - In hives with brood up to 80% of mites are under caps (i.e., not exposed to OAV);
> 
> When people say OAV doesn't work, they most probably mean that OAV isn't the best choice (if a good choice at all) for hives with brood.


I'm not sure on your last statement, that's what they probably mean. If you're willing to do multiple treatments (when there is brood) it is a good choice. If you're not will to do multiple treatments on hives that have brood, yes there are better alternatives.


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## Dan the bee guy

missybee said:


> This is two days after a OAV treatment..................
> View attachment 36329


That looks similar to my boards after OAV. My queen stopped laying and went brood less for a short time put syrup on she started laying again. The hive has a medium cluster looks like it could survive.


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## missybee

Update

I cleaned off the boards, after a week I checked for mite drop, only finding one or two or none! YEAH! We were going to treat again in December, but most likely won't if the mite drop stays where it is right now. 

I coated the boards with veg oil to trap them. Will keep checking and cleaning them off and on, the hive debris starts making it hard to see them.


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## Eduardo Gomes

baybee said:


> When people say OAV doesn't work, they most probably mean that OAV isn't the best choice (if a good choice at all) for hives with brood. If brood is present, one can stop exponential proliferation of mites with multiple OAVs; but is it possible to get below the treatment threshold?


baybee your alert is very adequate, IMO. Colonies with brood treated with OA by sublimation (3 treatments at 5 day intervals) showed post-treatment infestation levels similar to untreated control colonies in a french study. (source http://blog-itsap.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/compte-rendu-activite-itsap-2015-2016-3.pdf, pgs 27-29).


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## baybee

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Colonies with brood treated with OA by sublimation (3 treatments at 5 day intervals) showed post-treatment infestation levels similar to untreated control colonies in a french study.


Eduardo, thank you for the reference! It's a good read. 

They treated hives with MAQS and OAV (3x, five days apart) at the beginning of the season, mid-April, and then followed the infestation levels through September. 

The OAV-treated hives weren't different from the controls. The MAQS-treated hives kept mites at relatively lower levels until late June. By September, mite levels were the same in all hives. They say by September they lost 21% of all hives in the experiment, but how many in each group?



In the paper they mention "Aluen CAP", which surpassed even MAQS in mite control without any adverse effects on the bees/queens. Looks like a new and efficient OA-based anti-Varroa product is coming: a slow-release OA strips that are left in hive for 42 days. Are there references to DIY "Aluen CAP"-like strips?


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## Dan the bee guy

Just looked back at pics I took of mite falls after treatment with OAV. Picture taken after treatment 6 had just as many mites fall as after the first treatment. Only after the queen stopped laying for a short time so all mites were phoretic did the OAV get most of them. Makes you wonder how quick do those mites go back in the cells.


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## Eduardo Gomes

baybee said:


> Are there references to DIY "Aluen CAP"-like strips?


baybee I only know DIY (do it yourself) instructions in spanish for Aluen CAP-like strips. At 2.2 part of this link: https://www.latiendadelapicultor.com/blog/tratar-varroa-con-acido-oxalico-y-glicerina/


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## baybee

Eduardo Gomes said:


> ... DIY (do it yourself) instructions in spanish for Aluen CAP-like strips.


Thanks again, Eduardo! According to their graph, which looks almost identical to the one from RO's site, applications in strips (dos tiras de AO) and in shop towels (por Randy Oliver) are equally effective and harmless to the bees despite concentrated acid.

However, they warn about mites developing resistance to OA. This has never been observed, or has it?


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## beepro

So far nobody reported about mites developing resistance to OA yet. They did
mention that OAv did not work. Not sure how this can be. Maybe after the first round
of treatment the mites are still inside the cap broods. Because not all bees emerge at
the same time. After they emerged the mites will reinfect the broods again. The operator thinking
that no more mites drop so the treatment is done and effective. They did not know that the last cap
brood frames still have mites inside the cap broods. It is a serious issue when the beekeeper thought that
they have the mites all under control. Next Spring time they have to battle the mites again.


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## missybee

Mites are a never done fight. I would love to be treatment free like some have been able to do. At this time that is a no go with the mite explosions we see.


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## dudelt

When I see studies like this French study, I cringe at the quality of the scientists. All the study proves is that no matter what you treat with, your hives will get re-infested with varroa again. Didn't we not know this already? If they really want to test how well a treatment works, they MUST quarantine the hives away from all other hives to eliminate drift and contamination from other hives. The photos showing the drop when using OA or MAQS or Apivar proves they are effective. Each treatment protocol has its pros and cons and an optimal time and method to use them. It is our job as the beekeepers to understand them all and treat accordingly. 

On a humorous note, I love the title of this thread. I wish my mites would explode. It would be messy but the bees would be willing to clean it up!


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## missybee

dudelt said:


> On a humorous note, I love the title of this thread. I wish my mites would explode. It would be messy but the bees would be willing to clean it up!


roflmao! No kidding!


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## Eduardo Gomes

dudelt said:


> If they really want to test how well a treatment works, they MUST quarantine the hives away from all other hives to eliminate drift and contamination from other hives.


dudelt do you have something to support the idea that re-infestation don't to similarly affect all colonies in the same yard with same strenght, regardless of the type of acaricide used?

The french investigators were careful to compare results of equalised hives within a single yard. I'm not seeing the flaw in the methodology.


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## beemandan

dudelt said:


> If they really want to test how well a treatment works, they MUST quarantine the hives away from all other hives to eliminate drift and contamination from other hives.


Absolute isolation is rarely practical. The way I’ve seen it done….during treatment catch and count the falling mites on a genuine sticky sheet....and as soon as the treatment is complete, kill all of the bees, wash them in alcohol and count the remaining mites. Add the number of dropped mites and the washed mites then divide that total into the number of washed mites and multiply by 100. Subtract that from 100....that will get you pretty close.


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## missybee

During all these mite issues, we did have three hives that stayed mite free for the entire summer until October. While ones right next to them had mite hits off and on all summer.


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## dudelt

Eduardo Gomes said:


> dudelt do you have something to support the idea that re-infestation don't to similarly affect all colonies in the same yard with same strenght, regardless of the type of acaricide used?
> 
> The french investigators were careful to compare results of equalised hives within a single yard. I'm not seeing the flaw in the methodology.


Re-infestation happens to all hives regardless of hive strength. It appears to me that it happens to weaker hives much quicker. My best explanation is that those hives tend to get hit by robbers more often. My problem with the study is that you are going to see lots of mite issues 6 months after treatment no matter what form of treatment you use. Not living where the study was done is also an issue for me because I only know hive conditions in my area. In April, when the treatments were done, in my area this is prime drone rearing time. If you do 3 OA treatments, 5 days apart, you cover only 10 days total. Treatment 1 on day 0, treatment 2 on day 5, treatment 3 on day 10. The drones that were capped on the 4 days before the treatment were still under the cappings when the last treatment was done. Yes, OA is supposed to still be effecting mites for 3 days after treatment but I cannot prove they would be effected by the treatment. Thus, using only a 10 day treatment period, up to 23% of the mites in the hive may not have been exposed to the treatment because they were under cappings at the time all the treatments were done. This will negatively effect the mite counts for the OA treated hives.


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## Eduardo Gomes

dudelt said:


> My problem with the study is that you are going to see lots of mite issues 6 months after treatment no matter what form of treatment you use.


Or sooner.

I do not think the purpose of the study is what you think. I do not think researchers were looking for an acaricide that would prevent re-infestations or an acaricide that would be effective for several years. The circumstances in which they evaluated the acaricides in question are normal conditions for many of us. Isolating the hives to avoid re infestations and only then testing the acaricides would introduce a new condition in the experience that would be very artificial because too far from the reality of many beekeepers and hives around the world.

The aim of the study was to verify the effectiveness of different acaricides and application procedures when applied mid-season (April, in this case) at a time when hives have brood and are in the midst of expansion.

As all hives tested were in similar circumstances, differences in post-treatment infestation rates can be attributed to the different efficacies of the acaricides used with those procedures and with a high confidence level (95%). In these circumstances and with the procedures used the experience shows that the MAQS is more effective than the OA. Only that.


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