# brood break to make OAV work



## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Was wondering if the queen could be locked in a small, introduction-type queen cage for two weeks to create a brood break? Would she be fed and groomed all this time? I guess the first week, when there are still eggs and young larvae around, would be the most critical time. After that, new queen cells can't be made and the bees would have to take care of the caged queen. 

Alternatively, the hive could be split into two hives, both of which at some point will be without capped brood and ready for OAV. The parent hive at the old location with the queen, foragers and drawn comb will be ready for an OAV right away; the split at a new location with all the brood and nurse bees will be ready in 24 days, with a new queen or not.

Also, what is a queen rearing season in the SF Bay Area? Is it about the same as the swarm season? If yes, then I guess my bees have a chance of re-queening themselves, because according to a local TV station mid-June is when "calls about bee swarms start to boom".

Caging the queen for 15 days or splitting the hive? Would appreciate any feedback.


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## Kuro (Jun 18, 2015)

Randy Oliver described this caging & OA treatment (http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-dribble-tips/, the 4th figure). 

This year one of my hives was already dropping >10 mites/day in mid May (I usually hardly see any until early August). So when I did cut-down split on 5/26, 2 weeks before I thought the blackberry flow would start (it turned out it was a week too early), I put an open brood frame, 2 food frames, 2 empty frames into a nuc box, shook in lots of bees, did OAV, then placed the old queen there. The nuc dropped a dozen mites in a few days and stopped. The queenless mother hive (hopefully raising a new queen) keeps dropping 10-20 mites/day. The hive should be without capped brood this weekend (4 weeks after the split), so I will use a bee escape to get bees out of supers then do OAV. I hope this keeps mite counts low enough until late summer, when I plan to treat with MAQS.

I don’t know when is the best time to split in the Bay area.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

give this a read
there are some down sides to caging the queen 
https://www.apimondia.com/congresse...ctor The Best Way - Alessandra Giacomelli.pdf

yes a fly back type split would be a good way, and you can recombine later if you don't want more hives and keeps the queen laying, something you want before the flow peaks
yes in most areas of the country if not all the bees should be able to make there own queen


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Kuro said:


> ...
> This year one of my hives was already dropping >10 mites/day in mid May (I usually hardly see any until early August). So when I did cut-down split on 5/26, 2 weeks before I thought the blackberry flow would start (it turned out it was a week too early), I put an open brood frame, 2 food frames, 2 empty frames into a nuc box, shook in lots of bees, did OAV, then placed the old queen there.


Thanks! I decided on doing a split because this way there will be at least one healthy hive for sure. Will try doing OAV before moving the old queen. 



msl said:


> give this a read
> there are some down sides to caging the queen
> https://www.apimondia.com/congresse...ctor The Best Way - Alessandra Giacomelli.pdf
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reference. Interesting data! They claim that formic acid treatment is less effective on hives with caged queen. 

My hives are in a small coastal valley which amplifies the cold afternoon ocean breezes. While there is always enough forage for the bees, this spring we've had only a few quiet and warm days. The hives are thriving but queens rarely get mated.


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

I personally don't worry about the brood break. OAV is VERY effective. If you are really concerned Try several treatments. They are cheap and not hard to do.
I only treat twice a year. Once when I put the supers, once late in the fall, usually around thanksgiving as the hive numbers drop dramatically. I don't count anymore, as I've never counted that I didn't need to treat. So I treat on a schedule. If I add a 3rd treatment it's at the beginning of spring build up.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Robbin said:


> ...OAV is VERY effective.
> ...
> 
> ...usually around thanksgiving as the hive numbers drop dramatically.
> ...


Why do the hive numbers drop dramatically? Or was that the mite numbers or the bee numbers?

From my experience, yes, OAV is very effective -- at least this is what I'd like to think when I see hundreds of dead mites on the SBB trays. But they say that only phoretic mites are hit by OAV, which is only 1/5 of the total mite population.

I suspect that either you prevent your bees from raising drones, or the bees in your hives have the right genetics to fight off the mites and the viruses.


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

baybee said:


> Why do the hive numbers drop dramatically? Or was that the mite numbers or the bee numbers?
> 
> From my experience, yes, OAV is very effective -- at least this is what I'd like to think when I see hundreds of dead mites on the SBB trays. But they say that only phoretic mites are hit by OAV, which is only 1/5 of the total mite population.
> 
> I suspect that either you prevent your bees from raising drones, or the bees in your hives have the right genetics to fight off the mites and the viruses.


Hi Baybee,
No way it only kills 1/5, if you do three timed to hatching brood, you'll kill over 90%. I don't bother with that anymore as my hives do quite well with two scheduled treatments. Sometimes 3. The Hive (Bee) numbers naturally fall dramatically in November (here in NW Florida) as the hive prepares to go into winter with the fewest mouths to feed until spring. So It's a natural brood break. When I treat, my drop boards have thousands of dead mites. Last time I bothered to count I quit counting at something over 2000 and there were many more on the sticky board. OAV is VERY effective. I hit them once when I pull the supers off in July and then again around Thanksgiving. My VSH Breeder queen came today so I'm going to try treatment free for a while with daughters from this breeder. But I won't hesitate to go back to VSH. But I'm hoping I'll get really good VSH behavior from this new breeder. We shall see. 
Good luck with you bees!


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Robbin said:


> ...
> I don't bother with that anymore as my hives do quite well with two scheduled treatments.


The million dollar question is whether you and all other whose bees survive with a few OAVs already have mite/virus-resistant genetics. Those aren't just random swarms, are they? In my hands, bees from fellow backyard keepers didn't respond to OAV; the breeder queens didn't even need it. I suspect all those TF preachers are just lucky enough to have access to mite-resistant genetics queens.


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## Eddie Honey (May 30, 2011)

deleted


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

baybee said:


> The million dollar question is whether you and all other whose bees survive with a few OAVs already have mite/virus-resistant genetics. Those aren't just random swarms, are they? In my hands, bees from fellow backyard keepers didn't respond to OAV; the breeder queens didn't even need it. I suspect all those TF preachers are just lucky enough to have access to mite-resistant genetics queens.


I can tell you they didn't do well without the OAV treatments. I missed them last year due to health problems and suffered the worst losses I've had since I started treating.
We'll see how the new VSH queens I bought this year and the VSH Breeder that I bought that Finally arrived Yesterday. I haven't treated this year, thinking I won't, we'll see how it goes with the new stock.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

The weather finally cooperating, ended up splitting the hive into two. The queenright half is at the old location: two deeps of mostly undrawn foundations with several frames of partially capped nectar and partially filled medium super; it has no eggs or open brood because all frames with eggs contained a lot of sealed brood; shook two frames of nurse bees from brood frames to take care of the queen. The queenless half is two deeps ten feet away with all the brood frames and partially filled nectar/honey frames frames; it has two-three frames with patches of eggs/young larvae -- should they decide thay they want a new queen.

This is pretty much fly-away split except there are no eggs/open brood in the queenright half. Let's see if the queenless half manages to raise a laying queen.

OAV will be done in two-three days on the queenright hive and three weeks+a few days from now on the queenless hive.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

Heads up the reason for the open brood on the old site is to keep the bees from obsconding you may want to do something about that even if it comes from a different hive


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

msl said:


> Heads up the reason for the open brood on the old site is to keep the bees from obsconding...


There are a few patches of empty worker comb, the bees grew up in this hive and the queen is still there. Should be quite different from a hived swarm. Well, we'll see.


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

I've never had one abscond, thou it certainly seems plausible. I always move the queen and and most of the brood. Got to leave some young brood for the first hive to raise a queen with. 
Anyway, my logic is 90% of the fliers will come home to the first hive. So I need brood to emerge in the hive with the queen, as the numbers are always going to start off very low
when the fliers leave. The original hive ends up with almost all the fliers and can suffer the brood break while raising a new queen. I do this for nucs all the time, join a nuc with a queenless hive and put a nuc back in the original spot. It fills up with fliers and they raise a new queen.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

looks like it's working for you, but not the "best" way in my book... here is why

your minimizing the nurse bees in the old hive that now has to raize a queen, your queen quality can suffer

The forge force is 1/4-1/3 the hive pop, say you have 50,000 bees.... your forage force is t 15,000 bees left at the old site.... 2 deep frames of capped brood is 18,000 bees... It becomes obuives witch split is going to be low on bees 

you have a large number of older bees. With short lives.. from the start of you split your new queen is 25 days from laying, 45 days from her brood to start emerging and 67 days from them starting to forage.

I give the old bees the old queen, and let the new bees with a much longer life, most of the nurce bees, and most of the resorces, make the new queen


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

In my opinion if you are doing a brood break without treatment it is just like giving the bees and the mites a half time break before they continue on the breeding game of course the longer it goes on the more the mites will gain. That is of course if you have only one hive, if you have more than one you had better treat them all at the same time cause those mites who got around the USA in no time at all will surely leave the hive with diminishing brood and hitch a ride to other hives where the brood pheromone is strong. These critters do not survive by being stupid.
Johno


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## Kuro (Jun 18, 2015)

baybee, good luck to your split&OAV! Here is what happened to mine so far.

The nuc (started with the old queen, one open brood frame, ~3 frames worth of non-flying bees, OAVed on the day of split, 5/27) is now in 5-frame double nuc with a frame feeder and mite drop (24h) has been mostly 0, sometimes 1. 

The mother hive was inspected on 6/23, 4 weeks after split. I found a new laying queen and as expected, no capped brood. I put an empty box above the queen excluder, put a few empty frames (so that the bees can perch on for the night), shook as many as bees as possible from honey supers into the box, placed the inner cover with a bee escape, then placed honey supers. In the early morning next day, I removed supers, did OAV from the bottom entrance, removed the box with empty frames shaking bees off, and put supers back. About 150 mites dropped during the first 3 days after the OAV and ~50 during the next 4 days. The hive is still dropping a few mites a day but it is certainly better than 20 mites a day in mid May, so I am quite happy with the result.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Kuro said:


> ...so I am quite happy with the result.


:thumbsup:


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

msl said:


> looks like it's working for you, but not the "best" way in my book... here is why
> 
> your minimizing the nurse bees in the old hive that now has to raize a queen, your queen quality can suffer
> 
> ...


Nothing wrong with your logic, I follow it in my cell builder trying to raise 25 queens at a time. When I split, I figure I need 1/25th of the resources for a queen. 
If you leave the queen in the home box, and 90% of the fliers go home, all the bees that were thinking about swarming are back in the same box. I've had them swarm within two weeks.
I've never had them swarm when I move the queen. The crowded box with the bees that were ready to swarm don't have a queen, and the queen that was ready to swarm doesn't have a swarm. I think it works pretty good.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> If you leave the queen in the home box, and 90% of the fliers go home, all the bees that were thinking about swarming are back in the same box. I've had them swarm within two weeks


In the split were talking about most of the resources and all the caped brood and the bulk of bees end up in the hive that is going to raize a queen, they aren't going to swarm. While the forgers are the ones to trigger swarming now have no food or resources, and a whole bunch of space they need to draw and fill before winter, this triggers post swarm behavor 



> So I need brood to emerge in the hive with the queen,


I wanted to come back to this, having the queen with capped brood defeats the purpus of the split, witch is to give each hive brood less period so the mites can efficiently be knocked back with a single OA treatment in each hive


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## Robbin (May 26, 2013)

You are correct, I never split for that reason so I forgot that was the purpose of the discussion. I only split to stop swarming.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Did OAV tonight on both the queenright and the queenless halves about three days after split. 

The queenright half at the old location has looked busy so far, showing no sign of distress due to missing brood. 

I also vaporized the queenless half, which raises its own queen, thinking that it may reduce the chance of mites entering queen cells before they are sealed. On the other hand, the mites may not even be interested in queen cells considering that they prefer slower developing drones.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Update on the split done on July 3rd as below:



baybee said:


> The weather finally cooperating, ended up splitting the hive into two. The queenright half is at the old location: two deeps of mostly undrawn foundations with several frames of partially capped nectar and partially filled medium super; it has no eggs or open brood because all frames with eggs contained a lot of sealed brood; shook two frames of nurse bees from brood frames to take care of the queen. The queenless half is two deeps ten feet away with all the brood frames and partially filled nectar/honey frames frames; it has two-three frames with patches of eggs/young larvae -- should they decide thay they want a new queen.
> 
> This is pretty much fly-away split except there are no eggs/open brood in the queenright half. Let's see if the queenless half manages to raise a laying queen.
> 
> OAV will be done in two-three days on the queenright hive and three weeks+a few days from now on the queenless hive.


I haven't yet checked on the parent hive with the old queen, all the foragers and no brood since July 3rd (except for two OAVs within the first week after split) because it has been looking healthy: no crawling DWV bees, active foraging for pollen, and recently resumed crowded orientation flights.

The queenless half of the split had produced two frames with several queen cells on each. A few days after the split, I moved one frame with queen cells into a nuc, the other stayed in the two-deep hive. Neither had brood on Aug 6th inspection. The new queens were small, sized almost like regular workers.

While the queen in the nuc was easy to find, it took three attempts and also a 24-hr brood-frame test to find the queen in the second hive. I culled them both; the nuc is queenless now; the hive is given an egg+larvae brood frame with several notches on each side. 

I believe the queens have never even attempted mating flights because of the weather. This July and now August have been cool and windy. The 20-25 mph onshore winds starting shortly after noon quickly drove the temps to high-50s.


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## Kuro (Jun 18, 2015)

Sounds like keeping the original queen is a good idea, if you do not have many hives (I only keep 2 -3). 

(Update on post#17) My old Q is doing fine in Nuc with very low mite count (I moved the old Q to a Nuc in late May and let the mother hive raise a new Q. The Nuc got OAV on the day of split and the mother hive 4 weeks later), but the new Q swarmed in mid July, after I thought the major flow was over! Then they had a deformed Q (her wings were damaged but I did not find k-winged workers). When I removed the deformed Q there still were a few Q cells with larva but they disappeared before being capped! (looking back, those cells must have had drone eggs laid by the deformed Q or LW). So I gave them a brood frame and they made a few emergency cells but it is kinda late in the season so I may end up combining back the original Q. I did another OAV during this 2nd brood break. Mite count is very low now. No brood, no mites…….


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Kuro said:


> ...So I gave them a brood frame and they made a few emergency cells but it is kinda late in the season so I may end up combining back the original Q
> ...


There is a chance that starting mid-August the seasonal sea breezes will subside and there will be enough warm and quiet days for mating flights.

The Q-less nuc still is full of bees that have never seen brood, but running low on stores; going to newspaper combine it with the Q-less hive which I hope has started working on a new set of queen cells today.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Combined the Q-less nuc with the hive using an inner cover with the vent opening patched with a sheet of newspaper. This hive already had an internal jar feeder over the inner cover so I just transferred the five frames of the nuc inside without opening the hive:


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Checked this queenless hive on Sept 4th, four weeks after placing a donor frame of young brood and after recombining. At that time, the new queen was laying in tight solid patches, which was a good news after two previous requeening failures. The bad news: all brood was drone. Decided to give this new queen another couple of weeks because all the drone brood was properly in drone comb, not a single drone in worker comb.

This morning found two solid patches of sealed worker brood, ~5" across, plus eggs and larvae. Just like its older sister a few feet away, this queen laid only drones for a week or two before starting to lay workers.

Dave Cushman's website says that: "Very often a young queen will lay drone eggs in worker cells for a short time before settling down...". But doesn't mention young queen laying only drones in drone comb for a week or so. Was wondering if this is a sign of a poor quality queen due to inbreeding or bad health?


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## vtbeeguy (Jun 10, 2016)

Imo you should've newspaper combined the split with the q right parent hive after the first failed requeening. By the time they're starting to raise and care for that second attempted queen the "nurse bees" are to old to do it right or not to the highest quality. Also by the time the second Q mates and starts laying the remaining bees are far to old to be caring for the larva properly. Maybe you could donate a frame or 2 of capped brood and adhering nurse bees.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

vtbeeguy said:


> ...By the time they're starting to raise and care for that second attempted queen the "nurse bees" are to old to do it right or not to the highest quality. Also by the time the second Q mates and starts laying the remaining bees are far to old to be caring for the larva properly.


I have an impression from reading about bee biology that nurse bees don't really age much without using up their fat bodies for secreting royal jelly. Isn't this what happens to winter bees? After months of broodless winter they raise enough bees to jump-start new season.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

As an update, all hives that have gone through a brood break by splitting in the summer drop very few mites after OAVs these days, which I think is quite impressive when compared to one hive that hasn't. All of them raise brood and forage, judging by the intense smell, for eucalyptus nectar/pollen. 

That one hive had been dropping ~200 mites 48 hrs after each OAV applied once every five days eight times total. With OAV series not working, two weeks ago I put the queen in a plastic clip cage accessible to workers. Yesterday I found the queen in good health, still inside the cage full of bees, and the cage itself intact. Still a lot of sealed brood, only a few sealed drone cells. Found and removed one capped emergency QC.

The QC was on the same frame on which the caged queen was sitting, except they were next to opposite side bars, separated by not more than 20". 

Will wait six more days for twenty total before releasing the queen. Is there any reason not to OAV once now while the queen is still caged?


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

during a brood break with no capped brood, all the mites are phoretic.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Yesterday, sixteen days after caging the queen, and four more days to go, decided to go ahead and zap the mites with an OAV. 12 hrs post-treatment, only 20-30 mites are on the SBB tray:


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

So either your hive had few mites, did you do a mite wash before treatment or where did the mites go. If the brood break killed all the other mites they would be on the bottom board, maybe you should look at your other hives that have brood and maybe they have more mites than they should have now.
Johno


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

Baybee,
PLEASE insert a new stickyboard and dribble the hive with a 3.4% oxalic solution, 5 ml per seam today or tommorrow.
The results would be most interesting.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Well, after the next 24 hrs mite drop is ~100-150:









I.e., around 200 total after 36 hrs.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

Had ~20 more mites after another 24 hrs. One more day to go before the queen goes back to laying. Total drop 60 hrs after a pre-queen release OAV is around 250. Expected three-four times more. I believe the lower actual number is due to lower pre-caging laying rate and hence less brood.


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## baybee (Jan 10, 2016)

The queen is released after 20 days in a clip cage. 
Had to break some burr drone comb around the cage built since the last inspection a week ago: 

















Only about ten worker brood cells total remain sealed at the periphery of two frames.

Noticed that the walls of the hive without insulation are covered with condensation and there are standing puddles where they meet the bottom. No puddles or condensation on foam covered walls.


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