# New research shows Varroa mites are made up of Oxalic Acid Vapor



## aunt betty

Have a lot of trouble keeping track of when I get to six ducks and can't imagine counting that many mites.
Do you name them too?


----------



## Ian

Oh boy I think you just side stepped a major hive crash


----------



## Gumpy

Ian said:


> Oh boy I think you just side stepped a major hive crash


I don't know. This hive has been doing well since I started it from a nuc in mid-May. It showed 7 mites / half cup (300) bees about Aug 22. I just can't figure why the numbers keep rising. I don't seen mites coming into the hive on foragers. Either my sugar roll was not accurate, or my treatments are not effective, or I've built a mite generator, but the more I treat, the more mites I have. 

One thing I've found frustrating is it seems I'm about the only person who counts dead mites after treatment, so I don't really have any data on what kind of counts I should expect. 

I've decided this is the last treatment in this round. I'll hit them again about the first or second week of Dec, and I think I'll do 3 consecutive treatments over 3 days. I'm really going to reevaluate this for spring, too, as I'm not convinced the tribal wisdom I've heard on OAV is necessarily correct. 

BTW, the other hive, which was queenless and broodless for a several weeks through August is also registering it's second higest counts after this treatment at 340, with a cumulative total of 3350 killed so far.


----------



## AHudd

Maybe your bees are robbing some dead-outs somewhere, bringing home some guests.

Alex


----------



## Ian

Ya more guys gotta count


----------



## clyderoad

Gumpy said:


> I'm really going to reevaluate this for spring, too, as I'm not convinced the tribal wisdom I've heard on OAV is necessarily correct.


I'm wondering if your OAV tool is faulty.
I built one years ago out of copper pipe that I heated with a torch. It was hard to heat correctly each time and never did a thorough
job. I trashed the thing after 2 seasons and bought a wand, happened to be the Heilyser brand.
The difference in effectiveness was immediately noticeable.
But even if you have one of the commercially made brands could it be faulty? like the heating plug has gone bad and the OA is not
vaporizing at proper temperature?
I vaporize OA as part of my mite treatment regimen and using the series of treatments has not failed me.
Those counts you reported after 7 treatments are very high. My counts decrease as the treatment is repeated on a weekly basis.
I might use something else at this point to save the colonies until I figured out the problem, maybe apivar (amatraz strips). The clock is ticking though.

My guess is bad oxalic acid, faulty tool or method, or as someone already posted your hives are robbing some hives full of mites and bringing them home.


----------



## snl

He's getting a mite drop, so the OA is doing its job of killing mites. 
Grumpy, how much brood in the hives?


----------



## clyderoad

snl said:


> He's getting a mite drop, so the OA is doing its job of killing mites.
> Grumpy, how much brood in the hives?


Don't we need to know if the OA is good, tool is good, method is good? start at the beginning to eliminate possible causes.
looks like it was 7 treatments, every 5 days. that covers a brood cycle and then some.


----------



## GSkip

Looks like QAV is working great. Rather have the mites dead on the bottom board than still on the bees, no matter have many are dropping each day.


----------



## snl

Both the OA and tool are good as he's getting huge mite drops. I'm thinking heavy brooding combined with heavy robbing of a mite bomb.


----------



## crofter

Gumpy said:


> I've decided this is the last treatment in this round. I'll hit them again about the first or second week of Dec, and I think I'll do 3 consecutive treatments over 3 days. I'm really going to reevaluate this for spring, too, as I'm not convinced the tribal wisdom I've heard on OAV is necessarily correct.


I would keep on doing the vaporizations on the same 5 day schedule till the drop count goes down. Dont back off to let the mites re enter cells although the queen may have shut down and is not providing any further brood cell sanctuaries. Those are scary numbers!


----------



## Richard Cryberg

crofter said:


> I would keep on doing the vaporizations on the same 5 day schedule till the drop count goes down. Dont back off to let the mites re enter cells although the queen may have shut down and is not providing any further brood cell sanctuaries. Those are scary numbers!


I would second this or I would put the needed number of apivar strips in. If you do not get the counts down you are going to have a dead hive.

Plus, next year how about doing a real mite count with an alcohol wash rather than a pretty much meaningless sugar roll?


----------



## adson

Is that hive down to the brood boxes now ? 
Or are you pulling supers while you are doing the treatments ?

I would think you would want to do a few more weekly treatments to prove to yourself that you are getting ahead of the mites....


----------



## Gumpy

Thanks for all the responses. I'll try to address them all in one post.

The robbing thing has certainly crossed my mind. I don't know what else is around me, other than a couple hives I see from the road a couple miles away. They are managed, but I don't know the beekeeper or what they may or may not be doing for mites. I don't see bees coming into the hive carrying obvious mites. A couple weeks ago I did see a couple bees on the front of the hive with mites, but I think they came from inside. 

The tool I'm using is one I built myself. I posted a thread on it awhile back: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?330756-OA-Vaporizer-The-*******-Way 
It's been working well, as far as I can tell. The number of dead mites spikes one and two days after each treatment and then tapers off as the days progress. On this treatment, however, I did notice I did not get quite all of the crystals burned. It was cold outside, and I think my MAP gas may be running low. Still, I was seeing vapor coming from the top of the hives, and my numbers were very high the following two days.

I inspected the big hive last Tuesday and it had eggs, larvae and capped brood on 4 frames in the second deep. Bottom deep was all empty brood comb, and the top deep has 8 frames of capped sugar syrup and the feeder. I did not put supers on the hives this year because I was taking frames out periodically to build nucs. I ended up feeding a ton of 2:1 to get them up to weight. They're both about 145-150 lbs now. 

I did not do an alcohol wash, but will certainly consider that next spring. I only did a couple sugar rolls, but I really don't trust that after what's been happening with the treatments. 

I wish I had some other numbers to compare mine to. I don't even know if 700 mites is a high drop count, though I'm pretty sure 8600 is high for the colony. 

I have considered continuing the 5 day treatments until the overall 5-day count accumulations following each treatment begin coming down. That count dropped on the second hive last week, but even that one seems to be surging this week, so I don't know. Even though everyone on here says multiple treatments won't harm the queen, I'm still a little nervous. 

Also, here are the 5 day accumulated counts on the strong hive for the 7 treatments:
Treatment 1: 418
2: 871
3: 1274
4: 1450
5: 1541
6: 1798
7: 1273 (2 days into the 5 days, but it's headed for record counts) 

Well, I'll keep counting dead mites and see how it goes. I will probably continue the treatments till I see numbers coming down. Not sure what my number target will be, though. I'm sure zero is not realistic.


----------



## jean-marc

I've done a fair bit of ite counting after oxalic treatments. In my experience, mite drop on a per day basis peak after 2 days then taper off. That would confirm that the oxlic acid treatments are working. Certainly the mite drops would lead me to believe it is working. I would have expected that after 7 treatments varroa numbers should be coming down. It looks like yours are still going up. The only reasonnable conclusion is that they are robbing out mite bombs. I guess winter has not set in yet and that bees are still flying?

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> I've done a fair bit of ite counting after oxalic treatments. In my experience, mite drop on a per day basis peak after 2 days then taper off. That would confirm that the oxlic acid treatments are working. Certainly the mite drops would lead me to believe it is working. I would have expected that after 7 treatments varroa numbers should be coming down. It looks like yours are still going up. The only reasonnable conclusion is that they are robbing out mite bombs. I guess winter has not set in yet and that bees are still flying?
> 
> Jean-Marc



We are in the mid 60's and nice weather. We have had only a couple minor frosts. There is a lot of daily bee activity. Pollen is still coming into the hives, and even drones coming and going from the hives. 

The mite-bomb theory is certainly what I'm trying to convince myself. I think it's the only logical explanation. 

It's obvious that the treatments are definitely working, but it's impossible to tell what percentage of phoretic mites are being killed.


----------



## johnwratcliff

I have a friend that similar results. We used a varrox. One of the best tools on the market. I'm more worried about adding all that oa to the colony. But I try not to worry too much about varroa. We were going to hit them again in a month or so.


----------



## Daniel Y

So my math may be off but. From some comments I have read a 4 to 5% infestation rate is at the line of critical to treat. I always have the figure of 60,000 bees in a colony. you claim over 8000 mites you have removed from this one hive. That is a 7.5% infestation rate. And still climbing. 
Assuming all of the above is correct. I would say your hive is at disastrous levels. Consider than that OAV is a preventative measure. you are now asking a preventative measure to solve a crisis condition. maybe a hive at a near 8% infestation rate does not get saved. You can't let the car run out of gas and still expect it to get you to the station. I don't care how aware you are that what you need is gas. Maybe OAV back when it was capable of making a difference. Now you may be bailing the boat with a teacup.


----------



## Saltybee

Curiosity would get the best of me. I would have to pull a little brood just to be nosy.

Heavy robbing should be filling a lot of frames.


----------



## jean-marc

I suppose at this point all you can do is keep treating. I do find it surprising that the hives have not collapsed. If Daniel Y has his math right at an 8% infestation rate, I would expect to see snotty brood, DWV symptoms, crawlers in the grass, shrunken abdomens... all the symptoms of a heavy mite infestation.

Way back on the 22nd of August you had 7 mites in a 300 bee sugar roll. I only do alcohol washses. I think they are more reliable. If we roll back the calendar I think you started treating 10 days or so after the sugar roll. Seems to me that you should have gotten all the mites from your hives with the 5 treatments. With the nice weather that you are still enjoying makes sense that the bees are robbing mite bombs. I say keep treating them. Apivar can work, but it is a slow release and there has been a fair bit of missuse of amitraz in the USA. At this point I would dig my heels in with the oxalic and keep vaporizing. Have a look at the brood and let us know what you see. If all looks well then that would point towards mite bombs being robbed. If you see problems with the brood then the mites just got the upper hnd becasue you waited that extra round of brood too long before treating.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

Saltybee said:


> Curiosity would get the best of me. I would have to pull a little brood just to be nosy.
> 
> Heavy robbing should be filling a lot of frames.


I thought the same so I did a check last week. I've been feeding heavily, but with colored syrup. The top deep is full of green syrup. There is brood in four frames in the middle and syrup in the remainder. The bottom deep is empty. No brood. No syrup. Just empty brood comb from earlier this summer. Plenty of room to put robbed honey. I'm just not seeing it. 

Today I had a significant drop in the mite count. The one hive was at 212; down from 721 yesterday. The other was 91; down from 340 yesterday. I hope it's a good sign, but I've seen these kind of drops on the third day before.


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> I suppose at this point all you can do is keep treating. I do find it surprising that the hives have not collapsed. If Daniel Y has his math right at an 8% infestation rate, I would expect to see snotty brood, DWV symptoms, crawlers in the grass, shrunken abdomens... all the symptoms of a heavy mite infestation.
> 
> Way back on the 22nd of August you had 7 mites in a 300 bee sugar roll. I only do alcohol washses. I think they are more reliable. If we roll back the calendar I think you started treating 10 days or so after the sugar roll. Seems to me that you should have gotten all the mites from your hives with the 5 treatments. With the nice weather that you are still enjoying makes sense that the bees are robbing mite bombs. I say keep treating them. Apivar can work, but it is a slow release and there has been a fair bit of missuse of amitraz in the USA. At this point I would dig my heels in with the oxalic and keep vaporizing. Have a look at the brood and let us know what you see. If all looks well then that would point towards mite bombs being robbed. If you see problems with the brood then the mites just got the upper hnd becasue you waited that extra round of brood too long before treating.
> 
> Jean-Marc



You may be right. I did hesitate when I found the 7 in the sugar roll. I was going to use Apivar. I had purchased some earlier in the year, but I was just reluctant to put it in the hive. I'm new. I still have some unwarranted idealistic views. 

My hives are on a brick surface. I have had crawlers on the bricks since the two nucs were hived in May. A fellow from the bee club with 24 years experience came by to help me when I thought one hive was queenless, and he wasn't at all concerned with them. I don't see snotty brood. Don't really know what to look for re: DWV symptoms or shrunken abdomems. As far as I can tell, they seem healthy and relatively strong. I've only seen mites on bees on one occasion, and it was a couple weeks ago when I saw a mite on two bees outside the top entrance. And I've been in my hives way more than I should have this summers trying to learn what they are doing. I think if they were 14% infested, I've have seem them, but maybe not. 

I'm still going with the idea that it's robbing and I'm getting them knocked down. I'll continue doing treatments on them until I see significantly less mites on day one and two following the treatment. Time will tell.


----------



## jean-marc

I guess all you can do is hang in there, same for the bees. Hopefully you started just before the last possible moment to save the hive. When you looked at the brood did you see any signs of varroa damage?

In the past I have had hives at 10% varroa levels (not fun). At first glance when you open the hive all looks well, however once I started looking at the frames of brood, I could easily see signs of varroa damage. Varroa on the adults, shrunken and deformed abdomens, snotty brood etc...

If you did not see that with 4 frames of brood ( assuming they are about 40-60% of a deep) I would say those colonies hive a fighting chance. Keep feeding and keep on treating.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> I guess all you can do is hang in there, same for the bees. Hopefully you started just before the last possible moment to save the hive. When you looked at the brood did you see any signs of varroa damage?
> 
> In the past I have had hives at 10% varroa levels (not fun). At first glance when you open the hive all looks well, however once I started looking at the frames of brood, I could easily see signs of varroa damage. Varroa on the adults, shrunken and deformed abdomens, snotty brood etc...
> 
> If you did not see that with 4 frames of brood ( assuming they are about 40-60% of a deep) I would say those colonies hive a fighting chance. Keep feeding and keep on treating.
> 
> Jean-Marc


Well, after reading some of the previous responses earlier, I decided to go back out and take a deeper look. I found the 4 frames in the middle deep with capped brood. Not as much as before. On one frame, though, I found a large patch of drone brood on both sides. I opened some, and they were loaded with mites. So I ripped most of the drone brood out of the comb and discarded it. 

I also saw more honey in the comb in the bottom box than I expected, and it wasn't syrup, so it is quite possible they have been robbing, although we have had flowers blooming up until about a week ago and they are still bringing in pollen. 

Thanks for all the advice. I'll keep treating and just see how it goes.


----------



## jean-marc

Getting rid of that drone brood was a good idea. I would venture to say at this point that those colonies will likely survive. If the bees were too far gone they would not have had the ability to make drone brood. The pollen flow that the bees are getting is great for keeping their immunological systems working well. Pollen is the key. The oxalic has given them a fighting chance. Had you waited 10 days more I am not sure that we would be having this conversation. 

Jean-Marc


----------



## Tom1617

Keep updating... as you know I am on the same track


----------



## Gumpy

Update.

5 day mite total following the seventh treatment: 1901
Accumulative total for seven treatments: 9253

Eighth treatment performed on Tuesday. Doubled the quantity of oxalic acid. Wednesday's count: 612

Population still climbing. Treatments don't seem to be affecting the bees, so I'll continue. Thinking about moving to a 3 day interval.


----------



## jean-marc

I was thinking about you this morning. Interesting to see the results. I finfd it surprising that with that many varroa in the colony you were not seeing any PMS symptoms are bee crawlers or any of the other symptoms associated with a heavy varroa load. You are definitely reducing varroa loads. I am sure the bees are enjoying the fruits of your labour. I find it amazing that they are still going. I said it before but I don't think with those loads the colony could have gone on much longer without treatments.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

Well, maybe I just don't know what to look for. I do get dead bees in front of the hives, and bees crawling around on the pavers, but the one guy who came to help me early on didn't think much of it. It really has not increased since I installed the hives. Kind of steady. Maybe they are a sign and I just didn't know what to look for. I don't see bees with deformed wings, either inside the colony or on the pavers. 

After seeing all the mites in that drone comb the other day, I went back in the next day to make sure I had eggs. Found some more drone cells and cut them out, also. I'm still concerned since there's still about 4 frames full of worker brood, and I did see mites in the few cells I opened of that. I think I'm going to hit them again tomorrow with OAV. Will be gone for a few days, and when I return I'll hit them again and if I still have high numbers, I'm going to start treating every 3 days. That way, I should be able to catch them as they emerge, and before they have a chance to mature and reenter a cell. I still have eggs, so will still be getting capped brood. I still haven't found any information on how long a mite stays outside after emerging before entering another cell.


----------



## crofter

The mites can jump right back into another cell. The foundress mite and the mite that was mated in the previous cell might not each spend the same time before they hop back in. Apparently mites that go back in immediately do not have quite as numerically high success rates in the next cycle as ones that spend more time and (perhaps) get a blood meal. I think (from memory) that about 4 days is average turn around time phoretic. 2 to 11 days is in print somewhere. When colony is broodless they can obviously exist for several months phoretic.

If I was not seeing mite counts drop after 4 rounds at 6 day intervals I would consider continuing and narrowing the time as you suggest. I think undertreating and leaving a lot of survivors is the more conducive to the development of resistance to a treatment compared to a scorched earth campaign. Dead mites dont become resistant to OA or Formic acid!


----------



## jean-marc

Bees on the pavers... meaning crawlers are a warning sign of heavy varroa infestation. The varroa drops you are experiencing confirm this. Even though buddy thought nothing of it, I can only say that some people do not recognize signs. Just keep treating. At some point the drops will go from the 1500 to 400 then less than 100 than less than 10. Had you asked me earlier I would have thought that your levels would be dropping by now. Soon, should not be too long now. In any event now is not the time to through the towel in.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> Bees on the pavers... meaning crawlers are a warning sign of heavy varroa infestation. The varroa drops you are experiencing confirm this. Even though buddy thought nothing of it, I can only say that some people do not recognize signs. Just keep treating. At some point the drops will go from the 1500 to 400 then less than 100 than less than 10. Had you asked me earlier I would have thought that your levels would be dropping by now. Soon, should not be too long now. In any event now is not the time to through the towel in.
> 
> Jean-Marc



These were California hives that the guy I bought them from brought back and split into nucs. I had SHB and chalkbrood on one of them right off the bat. This hive, though, did very well. I had bees on the pavers from day one, though. I suppose, given the number of mites I'm seeing they they were always there, but if that were the case I would have expected problems earlier in the summer, and higher numbers on the first three treatments. Doesn't really matter, I suppose. The issue now is to get them under control. If I'm successful and I can get these bees through winter, it will be interesting to see if there are differences in behavior, bees on the pavers, etc, next year. Hopefully I will learn something and it won't cost me my bees!


----------



## clyderoad

Gumpy said:


> ... I still haven't found any information on how long a mite stays outside after emerging before entering another cell.


This may help from the U of Florida:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/bees/varroa_mite.htm

or this from exTension:
http://articles.extension.org/pages/65450/varroa-mite-reproductive-biology#.Ur-nqtJDvE0


----------



## FlowerPlanter

Gumpy said:


> Update.
> 
> 5 day mite total following the seventh treatment: 1901
> Accumulative total for seven treatments: 9253
> 
> Eighth treatment performed on Tuesday. Doubled the quantity of oxalic acid. Wednesday's count: 612
> 
> Population still climbing. Treatments don't seem to be affecting the bees, so I'll continue. Thinking about moving to a 3 day interval.


We have the strongest and most resilient Varroa yet!!!

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...how-dangerous-is-Apivar&p=1482139#post1482139


----------



## DavidZ

I sit and wonder why everyone waits until Sept to do mite check, when it's way to late to get them under control.
this forum has 10+ yrs of threads proving this fact.

the methods/graphs show you are supposed to start counting May 15th and control should start then.
That's when mites start to build up, and if you waited till sept the mites have reproduced exponentially to uncontrollable levels. 
go read on scientificbeekeeping, or just do a google on "varrora control graphs" and study the written literature.


----------



## JClark

If it were me, this close to winter, I'd bomb w/ MAQS to kill the mites under the cappings as well--especially in MN. I haven't visited this board in a while but started getting questions from folks that know me. They all start that they have a friend beekeeper that started treatment with OAV in the last few weeks and they wanted to know..... (I am an entomologist so these questions find their way to my worker "bees"). For me, here, treatment time was in Aug at the latest.

OAV treatment must be the new bandwagon now that it is actually listed as a mite treatment method. I know it works good but I was under the impression that this was a winter treatment--when hives are as close to broodless as possible. In my opinion, using OAV with brood present is an inefficient means to attack the problem, especially this late in the season. Even for Apivar, it is too late--This is what I tried this year to good effect.


----------



## jean-marc

Beekeeping is timing. I too am amazed that some wait well into Sept before the do a sugar roll... then many are complacent about the readings and what they mean. Anything above 1% in an alcohol wash means treat. And yes oxalic is wonderful as a winter treatment, but you need to get them there. We used MAQS in august and september. Thymol in September on others. I think we were a bit late with the thymol but we will put some serious efforts towards oxalic sublimation. In our parts of the world December is the month. On the prairies, mid october or so. It is all tricky because the time they go broodless to the time they go in the building can be a matter of a few weeks to a few hours.

Jean-Marc


----------



## JClark

Yes, I was guilty of this when I first started. Even thought I could go treatment free. Can be done here with yearly splits and good stock but I got tired of seeing hives die out on their second year. With the cold front pushing through it may very well be too cool for MAQS now. 

Biggest thing you can do now is make sure plenty of sugar is always available directly above the cluster so their metabolic heat plume keeps it warm enough for them to access. In my experience, my hives died from mites because they ran out of food up top when it was too cold for them to move to the side to access other capped frames. But this holds true for any small cluster, whether caused by mite pressure or not. Also, note that my winters are mild compared to yours so I'm not the best person to get advice from.


----------



## crofter

I think it is the uncapped frames in supers that tempts people to put off treating. Gotta get that last bit of honey! I am learning that it is easier to keep a few more hives if I want more honey, then I pull supers off early to mid Aug. and do my treating program. I almost always need to feed so it is easy to have the bees empty out those partially filled supers. I have only had one fall in the last four that gave any worthwhile amount of flow. 

Crisis management is hard on the nerves!


----------



## JRG13

I was a little concerned about this, until I read these are California mites..... this is perfectly normal for California mites..... Sometimes I even have the exact opposite effects... I will monitor a mite drop over a week, and maybe count 2000 mites, treat with oxalic, come back in 72 hours and count 8 mites....... My buddy had this same thing happen last year, I think even after an Apivar treatment, he hit his hives with oxalic and the mites just kept on falling in greater numbers each time and the hives were not looking bad at all in terms of health etc... I couldn't really advise as I do not use oxalic very much and typically don't monitor, but I've never had great results with it.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

Gumpy said:


> I still haven't found any information on how long a mite stays outside after emerging before entering another cell.


IMO this is a critical issue when using OAV with brood.

It seems that no one knows under natural conditions which is exactely the duration of the phoretic period however I let this quote: "The duration of the phoretic phase (Phoretic Varroa = on adult bees) between 2 reproductive cycles is variable. An impregnated young female must necessarily mature in phoresy around 7 days (from 5 to 14) before it can infest a cell at the right stage and carry out its first reproductive cycle. *However, the phoretic phase is not vital subsequently and depends mainly on the availability of nearby cells to be infested at the right stage of development.*" source: http://www.veto-pharma.com/products/varroa-control/about-varroa-mites/


----------



## jwcarlson

Gumpy said:


> Update.
> 
> 5 day mite total following the seventh treatment: 1901
> Accumulative total for seven treatments: 9253
> 
> Eighth treatment performed on Tuesday. Doubled the quantity of oxalic acid. Wednesday's count: 612


Can you post a picture of a sticky board if you took any? I kind of want to see what that many mites looks like.


----------



## grozzie2

Gumpy said:


> Also, here are the 5 day accumulated counts on the strong hive for the 7 treatments:
> Treatment 1: 418
> 2: 871
> 3: 1274
> 4: 1450
> 5: 1541
> 6: 1798
> 7: 1273 (2 days into the 5 days, but it's headed for record counts)


This suggests you are not getting the efficacy in mite kill, and it could well be that the home-made tool you are using is the culprit, and I would expect this result if it's overheating the OA during application. You'll still get some kill, but, not in high enough numbers to solve the problem. If it's overheating the OA, you will still see vapours, but, not the right kind of vapours to do the job properly. You will get some good OA crystals going into the hive right up until it overheats things, so, it'll have a kill rate, just not a high enough kill rate.

If you look carefully at the math for a mite population that's well established and reproducing in drone cells, the mite population will be doubling every 12 days. If you want to see the math worked out, go read this long and dry posting on the subject:- http://www.rozehaven.ca/farm/?p=421

The short version, an established population of breeding mites that have enough drone cells available for reproduction, will double in size every 12 days. If you are treating every 5 days, and only getting a 70% kill, then the mite population will remain roughly stable, and wont actually decline a lot thru that treatment regime. You need to be getting an efficacy of 90%+ to make a dent in the mites breeding in drone brood.

Other folks in the thread have suggested the tool is working well because you are seeing mites drop. I'm wondering if it's only working 'somewhat', ie well enough to get a 70% kill, but not well enough to get 90%+ kill rate, and with plenty of drone brood available, the mites are propogating fast enough to keep up with the kill rate.


----------



## cervus

jwcarlson said:


> Can you post a picture of a sticky board if you took any? I kind of want to see what that many mites looks like.


Me too. That seems like an extraordinarily high number of mites.


----------



## crofter

Grozzie; that is an interesting hypothesis into the situation. If the possible overheating is inactivating the desired characteristics it is going to take some rethinking by people who claim that is impossible. The apparent white plume could be not all that it appears to be. The implications of 70% effective vs 90% when you do the math on the exponential growth of the mite, sure suggests a different picture.

Thanks,


----------



## grozzie2

crofter said:


> If the possible overheating is inactivating the desired characteristics it is going to take some rethinking by people who claim that is impossible.


I dont know who claims overheating is impossible. I do know that two years ago I was at a conference and Medhat Nasr talked about just that with regard to home-made vaporizing equipment. When you heat the OA crystals, which are oxalic acid dihydrate, essentially an OA molecule bound to a water, the first step in the process is some steam as they unbind and the water steams off. Continue heating, and you get the oxalic acid crystals sublimating into the vapor. BUT, if you overheat, the OA breaks down, dont remember the exact stuff it turns into at that point. The temperature window for proper vaporizing is not extremely narrow, but it's not huge either.

So, if the gadget is overheating the oxalic acid, what I would expect to see, first we see it start to boil, then we see sublimation start, but later, a chemical reaction is happening that breaks down what is left of the OA, and the resulting gasses have no real effect on the mites in the hive. So when you _think_ you are putting 2g of oxalic crystals into the hive, you may be in fact getting substantially less, ie only a half gram of OA crystals in sublimated form, and a bunch of other gasses as things overheat.

The op is obviously getting a mite kill, reference the dead mites on the sticky board. The other thing that seems obvious, not enough mites are being killed, they seem to be re-producing at a rate high enough that there is no noticeable drop in population. Robbing is one possible answer, bees bringing mites home, but, I think a more likely answer is, the kill rate isn't enough to slow the explosive growth of a critical mass of mites. When I followed the link earlier in the thread to the photos of the home-made vaporizer, it's heating the pan with a torch, and no apparent temperature control. Makes me think that overheating the oxalic is the most likely reason for the poor kill rates.


----------



## grozzie2

Follow up on the temps for oxalic acid vaporization.

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/oxalic-acid-heat-vaporization-and-other-methods-part-2-of-2-parts/



> How does oxalic vaporization work? In the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics we find that upon heating oxalic acid, the water of hydration boils off first, then at 315°F the oxalic acid starts to sublime (go directly from solid to vapor), and finally at 372°F any oxalic acid which has not yet sublimed decomposes to formic acid and carbon monoxide.


Overheating the OA during the process of vaporization renders it ineffective. Yes, you will still see a fog of stuff from your vaporizer, but if you heat it over 372f, then it's turning into the wrong stuff, and is no longer in the form of sublimated oxalic acid. This is the first thing I think of every time I see a photo of a home made vaporizer that uses a torch of some type as the heat source.


----------



## viesest

If link works take a look at Varrogaz efficiency.

http://www-temp.agroscope.admin.ch/...O2Yuq2Z6gpJCDeHt,fWym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A--


----------



## Gumpy

jwcarlson said:


> Can you post a picture of a sticky board if you took any? I kind of want to see what that many mites looks like.


I have not taken any photos of them. I don't use a smartphone, and have not taken the camera to the bee yard when counting mites. Will try to get one on the next treatment.


----------



## rolftonbees

Its my understanding that OA is not effective agsinst the mites behind brood cappings and the mites on the mature bees are only a small percentage of overall mite load.

Perhaps applying another form of treatment that is effective on mites under cappings will get things under control.

Formic acid is though to be better in such cases. Mite away quick strips are an easy way to use formic acid.


----------



## jwcarlson

I don't say this to be mean or anything... but having talked with/helped many first year beekeepers (and even some ones a few years in)...

How positive are you that you're counting varroa mites and not something else?


----------



## Gumpy

jwcarlson said:


> I don't say this to be mean or anything... but having talked with/helped many first year beekeepers (and even some ones a few years in)...
> 
> How positive are you that you're counting varroa mites and not something else?


100%


----------



## jwcarlson

Gumpy said:


> 100%


:thumbsup:


----------



## viesest

rolftonbees said:


> Formic acid is though to be better in such cases. Mite away quick strips are an easy way to use formic acid.


Formic acid is probably good option for summer treatment (and recommended at Varrox web page). i.e. MAQS in second half of July and first half of August, maybe even under-dosed and combined with OAV.
And later OAV is very good for removing phoretic mites in September and October.


----------



## Hillbillybees

Why not pull the queen for a time with a few bees and put her in a small mating nuc or something that size and wait for the capped brood to emerge then treat the hell out of them. Or keep treating until there is no capped brood left in the hive. Queen is in the second box and your probably starting the treatment in the lower one. I would change that when I treated also. I would want the strongest first vapor hitting the majority of the bees and then going over them to the upper boxes. Just makes since they would get more of the treatment as it passed over them going into the upper boxes. Good luck


----------



## Gumpy

It would require at least 14 days to ensure all brood have emerged. In that time frame, the remaining bees would have produced another queen. I suppose you could go in and pull queen cells after 5 days. However, I suspect you might risk the queen when you went to reintroduce her to the colony after treatment. 

The opinions here have overwhelmingly been that the queen is not harmed by OAV, and as near as I can tell, that is proving to be the case in my hives. 

The vapors are permeating the entire hive. I did another treatment today and had vapors coming out of every seam that was not sealed, small openings in the bottom board (blocked off), the inner cover top entrance, and the tele-cover. I think it's safe to say they are getting well vaporized, unless the cluster between frames is so tight that the vapor cannot penetrate, but I doubt it. 

We'll see how the drop counts are tomorrow and the next day. Hoping this will be the last of it till Dec. 1. 

Up until now, I've been reluctant to use the synthetic chemical which permeate the wax. However, I'm beginning to rethink that for next year.


----------



## Hillbillybees

Well wish you the best. I would break that brood cycle someway to get those mites exposed. Leave her home and take the four frames away. If something isn't working after 7 times I would be mixing it up. You know the old saying of doing the same exact thing over and over and expecting different results???? Put her in an introduction cage that goes on the frame and that would only allow her to lay a small area. After all the brood emerges except that small area get rid of that frame. If I didnt want to break up the hive I would be throwing the kitchen sink at them. What do you got to lose? If you dont get them stopped she wont be there come spring anyways.


----------



## razoo

Daniel Y said:


> Consider than that OAV is a preventative measure.


I wouldn't say the OAV is a preventative measure. It is highly effective. OP obviously has a serious infestation and just needs to keep at it.


----------



## Kuro

Gumpy said:


> It would require at least 14 days to ensure all brood have emerged. In that time frame, the remaining bees would have produced another queen. I suppose you could go in and pull queen cells after 5 days. However, I suspect you might risk the queen when you went to reintroduce her to the colony after treatment.
> 
> The opinions here have overwhelmingly been that the queen is not harmed by OAV, and as near as I can tell, that is proving to be the case in my hives.
> 
> The vapors are permeating the entire hive. I did another treatment today and had vapors coming out of every seam that was not sealed, small openings in the bottom board (blocked off), the inner cover top entrance, and the tele-cover. I think it's safe to say they are getting well vaporized, unless the cluster between frames is so tight that the vapor cannot penetrate, but I doubt it.
> 
> We'll see how the drop counts are tomorrow and the next day. Hoping this will be the last of it till Dec. 1.
> 
> Up until now, I've been reluctant to use the synthetic chemical which permeate the wax. However, I'm beginning to rethink that for next year.


 I have the same problem with OAV although my numbers are lower than yours. When I did OAV last January, mite count dropped to near zero after 5th vap, but not this time. I started in Aug when mite count was still very low. After 6th vap (I did every 4 days), I still saw mite drop. I had to stop there (went out of town), but I did monitor natural drop during September, which doubled every week. I started the 2 nd round in late September and mites are still dropping after 7th vap. I’ll do the 8th tomorrow. I use Mannlake vaporizer and 1/2 tsp of OA. Round#1 (total 6 vaps) in August were done through the screen bottom (I have the solid bottom below). The first 6 of round#2 were done from the top. Since the 7th of round#2, I have started doing it from the bottom, but not through the screen. 
I did MAQS last summer and did not like it very much because it killed lots of bees (and mites), but I may use it again next summer.

Here are numbers I got from one of my 3 hives. The other two have less mites but the patterns are the same. So far I have not found any sick bees. 

Round#1 (8/11-8/31, 6 vaps every 4 days), mite drop 48 hrs after vap
22, 70, 97, 94, 94, 69

Natural mite drop (48hrs) between round#1 and round#2
9/15 17
9/22 36
9/28 72

Round#2 (9/29-, every 4 days), mite drop 48hrs after vap
206, 449, 367, 175, 146, 213, 337


----------



## Gumpy

Kuro said:


> Here are numbers I got from one of my 3 hives. The other two have less mites but the patterns are the same. So far I have not found any sick bees.
> 
> Round#1 (8/11-8/31, 6 vaps every 4 days), mite drop 48 hrs after vap
> 22, 70, 97, 94, 94, 69
> 
> Natural mite drop (48hrs) between round#1 and round#2
> 9/15 17
> 9/22 36
> 9/28 72
> 
> Round#2 (9/29-, every 4 days), mite drop 48hrs after vap
> 206, 449, 367, 175, 146, 213, 337


Thank you for posting your numbers here. It seems very few people count, so there's not much data to compare to. You 48 hour numbers are comparable to my numbers for the firs two days combined following treatments when I first started in Sept. Mine just keep rising, though. I hope yours do not do the same, but with 337 on the 6th treatment, I suspect they are.


----------



## Gumpy

Update after the tenth treatment on Wednesday. 

Thursday: 242 mites
Friday: 166 mites
Total so far since treatment began: 11530 dead mites. 

It looks like my numbers may be finally dropping. In fact, this is the first time the numbers on this hive were less than the hive which was queenless and broodless in August. 

I've decided to continue treating on a 3 day schedule for the next week or so. 

We had a nice day yesterday with temps near 70°F and all the hives were abuzz with lots of activity and bees hauling in dump truck loads of pollen! I opened the number 1 hive from which all my mite count numbers in this thread have come. There is still capped worker brood on 4 frames, and also lots of uncapped larvae along with it. Surprisingly, I saw 2 queens in the hive! This was a shock. I don't know when that happened. I never saw any queen cells in this hive. As far as I know there was only one queen in the nuc this spring, so it's possible they have created a daughter queen and mom and dot are working together until mom expires. Doesn't matter. The hive seems healthy. 

Planning to do another treatment today. 

craig


----------



## Daniel Y

Well that explains it. you had another hive move in. queen and all. and that is where all these mites have been coming from.


----------



## DavidZ

I bet she was a supersedure and the old queen wasn't killed.
He already admitted to not checking for mites till Sept.
that's why the mite were out of control


----------



## Gumpy

DavidZ said:


> He already admitted to not checking for mites till Sept.
> that's why the mite were out of control


Actually that's not true. Go back and read the thread. 

I checked for mites on June 28 and this hive had 1 mite in 300 bees. I did another sugar roll on August 26 and had 7 mites in 300 bees. I did delay starting treatments until Sept 13. 

I don't think another hive moved in. I suspect it's a supersedure queen. This hive was doing so well that I backed off on my meddling in it and was not going through it as much as early on.


----------



## Stephenpbird

What strikes me about these mite numbers is not that they are high, What I wont to know is why the mite counts are so low after the first two treatments in comparison to the others?
I too have a hive that is still dropping mites after 9 treatments, it was a Queen finisher, and treatments were also started very late in the season. I am not looking for a zero drop but about 100 after a treatment, that should do it until I can treat them in Decembers broodless period.


----------



## Gumpy

Stephenpbird said:


> What strikes me about these mite numbers is not that they are high, What I wont to know is why the mite counts are so low after the first two treatments in comparison to the others?
> I too have a hive that is still dropping mites after 9 treatments, it was a Queen finisher, and treatments were also started very late in the season. I am not looking for a zero drop but about 100 after a treatment, that should do it until I can treat them in Decembers broodless period.


I'm trying to figure that out, too. I have a hard time believing all these mites were in there when I started, but I don't see any signs of robbing, and I did find drone comb last week that was filled with them. My current theory is that a 5 day interval is too long to catch a newly emerged mite in phoresis before they find another cell. The queen(s) in this hive have been very prolific, so there are always cells ready to be capped, so I'm wondering if maybe the mites just are not staying in the open bee population long enough. That's why I'm moving to a 3 day interval.


----------



## jean-marc

It sure looks like the varroa are not staying in the open bee population very long. It also illustrates very well the exponential mite growth that happens late summer early fall. It also illustrates the importance of staying vigilant with varroa. Sugar rolls of 7 mites in late August were a clear indicator that this hive had elevated varroa levels. Looks like it will pull through now. It's great that there is a good pollen flow. It is very good for the bees immunity and may help explain why th colony managed to stay alive and well despite very high varroa levels.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Mike Gillmore

Is there anyone else who is finding this very odd? I've been using OAV very successfully for about 9 years now. 3-4 treatments a week apart in August-September, and one more when broodless between Thanksgiving and Christmas. With this OAV regimen my losses from Varroa have gone away and I no longer see DWV or other symptoms of Varroa pressure with my bees. 

Not challenging what's going on here, just completely stumped. Did the same thing this season, 4 OAV treatments a week apart in Aug-Sept. Just did a quick check today on my hives, taking advantage of what will probably be the final nice warm front moving through. They all look great. I don't understand all these excessive treatments, guess I should just be thankful and keep my mouth shut. But something seems way off, just sayin.


----------



## clyderoad

Mike Gillmore said:


> Is there anyone else who is finding this very odd? I've been using OAV very successfully for about 9 years now. 3-4 treatments a week apart in August-September, and one more when broodless between Thanksgiving and Christmas. With this OAV regimen my losses from Varroa have gone away and I no longer see DWV or other symptoms of Varroa pressure with my bees.
> 
> Not challenging what's going on here, just completely stumped. Did the same thing this season, 4 OAV treatments a week apart in Aug-Sept. Just did a quick check today on my hives, taking advantage of what will probably be the final nice warm front moving through. They all look great. I don't understand all these excessive treatments, guess I should just be thankful and keep my mouth shut. But something seems way off, just sayin.


yes I do.


clyderoad said:


> I'm wondering if your OAV tool is faulty.
> I built one years ago out of copper pipe that I heated with a torch. It was hard to heat correctly each time and never did a thorough
> job. I trashed the thing after 2 seasons and bought a wand, happened to be the Heilyser brand.
> The difference in effectiveness was immediately noticeable.
> But even if you have one of the commercially made brands could it be faulty? like the heating plug has gone bad and the OA is not
> vaporizing at proper temperature?
> I vaporize OA as part of my mite treatment regimen and using the series of treatments has not failed me.
> Those counts you reported after 7 treatments are very high. My counts decrease as the treatment is repeated on a weekly basis.
> I might use something else at this point to save the colonies until I figured out the problem, maybe apivar (amatraz strips). The clock is ticking though.
> 
> My guess is bad oxalic acid, faulty tool or method, or as someone already posted your hives are robbing some hives full of mites and bringing them home.





clyderoad said:


> Don't we need to know if the OA is good, tool is good, method is good? start at the beginning to eliminate possible causes.
> looks like it was 7 treatments, every 5 days. that covers a brood cycle and then some.


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> It sure looks like the varroa are not staying in the open bee population very long. It also illustrates very well the exponential mite growth that happens late summer early fall. It also illustrates the importance of staying vigilant with varroa. Sugar rolls of 7 mites in late August were a clear indicator that this hive had elevated varroa levels. Looks like it will pull through now. It's great that there is a good pollen flow. It is very good for the bees immunity and may help explain why th colony managed to stay alive and well despite very high varroa levels.
> 
> Jean-Marc


Yes, it was an indicator in August, and I procrastinated trying to decide if I should use Apivar or get an OAV device. My fault. I was still clinging to that ideology of not putting synthetic chemicals into the wax. Still, 7 mites in 300 bees is 2.33%. On a colony of 50000, that's only 1165 mites in the phoretic stage. I'm not sure what the rule of thumb is for calculating number of mites inside the brood cells, but even if it's 3x, that would only be 3495 mites in the colony. I've killed 11724 as of today. So, either my sugar roll was horribly inaccurate (possible), or these mites are horribly prolific (also possible), or someone's been bringing in charter flights of varroa mite refugees to my hives by the thousands (also possible). 

As indicated again, there have been questions about whether my vaporizer is working properly, or my acid is good. While I have zero experience in this, I think it's safe to say that when you see 800-1000 mites dead in the two days following the treatment, there's really no question that it's working and the acid is good. One thing I've found is that most people who treat OAV do not count dead mites. The few that do and have responded with numbers are showing considerably less mite drop counts than mine. 

I'm a newbee. I'll assume I did something horribly wrong this year. I think it's going to turn out ok, and I hope to have a chance to reevaluate it all next year. I also hope others who use OAV will take note, and on the off chance it wasn't all my fault, consider reevaluating the efficacy of their own treatments.


----------



## jean-marc

After colonies reach 1000 varroa, there ability to survive is compromised, especially if they are stillbrooding. Typical North American bee stock has varroa population doubling every 15 days. Apparently phoretic mites represent 15% of the varroa if colonies are still brooding. So your 1165 phoretic varroa are part of about 8000. So whilst you were busy killing them, they were busy breeding. Essentially I agree with everything you stated. Sugar rolls are inaccurate, whether they are horribly inaccurate or not does not really matter. I would agree that if 800-1000 varroa drop a few days after treatment, your oxalic is fine, your applicator seems fine, and your method of application is fine. You underestimated how many there were, and they are highly prolific. I'm not convinced that thousands are coming in from next door. The important part is that you are treating and reducing the varroa load on the bees.

The only thing you did wrong in my opinion was to underestimate the meaning of 2,33% varroa in August. The recommendations in Alberta (not sure about the rest of Canada) is to treat immediately when you see more than 1%. Treatment thresholds were higher in the past but because of the viruses being vectored with varroa treatment thresholds have been lowered.

I too think you will be fine, as well as your bees. Check levels in the spring and see if you are above treatment threshold. In the fall pull honey off asap. Monitor varroa levels, treat and feed colonies as needed.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> After colonies reach 1000 varroa, there ability to survive is compromised, especially if they are stillbrooding. Typical North American bee stock has varroa population doubling every 15 days. Apparently phoretic mites represent 15% of the varroa if colonies are still brooding. So your 1165 phoretic varroa are part of about 8000. So whilst you were busy killing them, they were busy breeding. Essentially I agree with everything you stated. Sugar rolls are inaccurate, whether they are horribly inaccurate or not does not really matter. I would agree that if 800-1000 varroa drop a few days after treatment, your oxalic is fine, your applicator seems fine, and your method of application is fine. You underestimated how many there were, and they are highly prolific. I'm not convinced that thousands are coming in from next door. The important part is that you are treating and reducing the varroa load on the bees.


I was unaware of that number. 85% of the mite population being in the comb! Ok, that's a whole new perspective. 8000 mites, then, is not that far off of the 11000+ I've killed, and they've been breeding like, well, like mites, since I started, so they were probably there all along, and the procrastination I did between testing and treating only doubled or tripled them! 




> The only thing you did wrong in my opinion was to underestimate the meaning of 2,33% varroa in August. The recommendations in Alberta (not sure about the rest of Canada) is to treat immediately when you see more than 1%. Treatment thresholds were higher in the past but because of the viruses being vectored with varroa treatment thresholds have been lowered.


I believe the University of Minnesota's current recommendations are to treat at 2% on a sugar roll or alcohol wash. However, maybe I'm mistaken as I've heard or seen many different threshold levels in the various videos and literature I've found. 



> I too think you will be fine, as well as your bees. Check levels in the spring and see if you are above treatment threshold. In the fall pull honey off asap. Monitor varroa levels, treat and feed colonies as needed.


Well, maybe the bees. Not sure about me. After all, I did decide to become a beekeeper. And honestly, there were some questionable signs even prior to that decision. 

Thank you for all you advice and encouragement, Jean-Marc. I appreciate it.


----------



## jean-marc

There are regional differences in treatment thresholds. Recommendations are also based from people. Medhat (alberta bee guy) might be highly cautious in his approach. After all the producers there are all highly invested in their businesses, winters can be very long and brutal, even more so than Minnesota's. Medhat's recommendations might also include a bit of better safe than sorry thinking, erring on the low side of varroa levels.

Gumpy, I don't think anybody will hold your decision to become a beekeeper against you, lol. Afterall if you can't get support from another beekeeper, we are pretty much doomed.

I am still curious to see your varroa numbers, post treatment.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Richard Cryberg

Gumpy said:


> I believe the University of Minnesota's current recommendations are to treat at 2% on a sugar roll or alcohol wash. However, maybe I'm mistaken as I've heard or seen many different threshold levels in the various videos and literature I've found.


[/QUOTE]

A 2% treatment threshold might be ok for an alcohol wash althou it seems quite high to me. But a sugar roll only gets from 1/3 to 2/3 the number of mites an alcohol wash gets. I do not understand why anyone does a sugar roll. It takes more time than a wash and gives results you can not trust other than to know they are always a lot lower than you would get with a wash. That probably is part of the reason you have killed more mites than your roll said were in the hive. Just multiply the roll number by 2 or 3 and you will find the hive had more mites than you have killed.


----------



## Gumpy

Hmmm... 

Here's a quote from the UofMN website: https://www.beelab.umn.edu/bee-squad/resources-beekeepers/varroa/threshhold

"How low should mite populations be in your colony? In areas densely populated with beekeepers and bee colonies, *mite levels should be below 3-4 mites/ 100 bees, particularly in September and October*. Use the Varroa mite testing kit (link) to find out what your colony’s mite levels are."


Then, they put out a out a PDF on Honeybee Diseases and Pests, 2016: https://www.beelab.umn.edu/sites/beelab.umn.edu/files/_2016_disease_pdf_version_s.pdf

"The following thresholds are guidelines based on our experience in Minnesota. If colonies have above 2-3 mites per 100 adult bees in May, mite levels usually become very high (e.g., over 10 mites per 100 bees) by late summer as the colony grows and mite populations increase. This increase in mites is especially evident in areas where there are many beekeepers such as in cities, or where there are many commercial beekeeping apiaries. It is wise to treat colonies with over 2-3 mites per 100 adult bees in May before the honey flow. 

If colonies have over *4-5 mites per 100 adult bees in late August or early September*, it is critical to treat them to reduce transmission of mites to other colonies and to help reduce colony death during late fall and winter. It is very important to do a final mite sample toward the end of October when there is no brood in the colony to determine if the treatment was effective, or to ensure mite levels did not rise due to horizontal transmission."

Highlights added.


----------



## viesest

A 'rant' about 'theories':
The 'theory of mite life cycle' is misleading, and the 'theory of threshold' is complicated.
These 'theories' should be replaced with 'theory of mite numbers'. (more mites more frequent treatments, and opposite)


----------



## Richard Cryberg

Gumpy said:


> Then, they put out a out a PDF on Honeybee Diseases and Pests, 2016: https://www.beelab.umn.edu/sites/beelab.umn.edu/files/_2016_disease_pdf_version_s.pdf


I have a lot of respect for Spivac and run her queens exclusively. There is a lot of literature publicly available that shows a sugar roll gets from 1/3 to 2/3 the mite count an alcohol wash gets. There is a lot of publicly available literature that shows the economic threshold for mites via an alcohol wash is 2%. You can choose to disregard all this information if you wish. Most back yard bee keepers ignore mites entirely.

Regardless of the mite technique it is also vital to sample the brood area. Sample the brood area and sample some other area in the same hive and the mite counts will be higher, up to a factor of three, in the brood nest. Yet, I dare say most people do not sample the brood area. So, why do people do a sugar roll when it is proven inferior? And why do people mite sample outside the brood area when it is proven inferior? Well, the main reason is likely along the lines of "I refuse to kill 300 bees with alcohol as that is simply cruel, and I refuse to disrupt the colony as much as is required to get a sample from the brood area." So, Spivac is a desperate effort to get people to do some kind of samples suggests the sugar roll. Even poor information is better than no information which is what the majority of back yard bee keepers have for mite counts.


----------



## Gumpy

Richard Cryberg said:


> I have a lot of respect for Spivac and run her queens exclusively. There is a lot of literature publicly available that shows a sugar roll gets from 1/3 to 2/3 the mite count an alcohol wash gets. There is a lot of publicly available literature that shows the economic threshold for mites via an alcohol wash is 2%. You can choose to disregard all this information if you wish. Most back yard bee keepers ignore mites entirely.
> 
> Regardless of the mite technique it is also vital to sample the brood area. Sample the brood area and sample some other area in the same hive and the mite counts will be higher, up to a factor of three, in the brood nest. Yet, I dare say most people do not sample the brood area. So, why do people do a sugar roll when it is proven inferior? And why do people mite sample outside the brood area when it is proven inferior? Well, the main reason is likely along the lines of "I refuse to kill 300 bees with alcohol as that is simply cruel, and I refuse to disrupt the colony as much as is required to get a sample from the brood area." So, Spivac is a desperate effort to get people to do some kind of samples suggests the sugar roll. Even poor information is better than no information which is what the majority of back yard bee keepers have for mite counts.


My point of the previous links was that I was surprised to find UofMN recommending such high percentages before treatment. I was working on the 2% threshold for treatment, and thought that information had come from the UMN literature, but when I went back to find it, that's what I came up with. Others were commenting that some areas recommend a 1% threshold. 

My samples were indeed taken from brood comb. However, I was following a collection technique presented by Dr. Dewey Caron in the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU06KJTxHR8. I found this video to be an excellent tutorial on doing mite counts using both sugar roll and alcohol wash. His technique for collecting bees is a bit easier than that promoted by UMN, and it does work very well. I'm wondering, though, if it's possible to dislodge mites from the backs of the bees as you do the collection, which obviously could skew the count. I did not, however, do the double sugar shake on the same bees, as he does in the video, so possibly incurred some inaccuracy due to my technique. I realized as I watched it again that he is recommending the 2% threshold for an August count, so that is where I got that threshold. 

As far as sugar rolls being less accurate than alcohol wash, and only gets 1/3 to 2/3 the mites compared to the wash, I've not come across that information in all the reading and videos I've done this year. As for choice, killing bees is one reason I didn't use the wash, and potential to get the queen in the jar was another. At the time I did the checks, I was still having problems seeing her on the comb. That's improving. I find it interesting that Dr. Caron's demonstration showed a huge difference between sugar roll and alcohol wash, and wonder if the bees are filtering the mites and not allowing them to wash out of the sample. I'd be interested in seeing the studies you allude to. 

I think next year, I will do some comparisons between sugar rolls and alcohol wash. Maybe do a sugar roll, and follow up with the second roll, and then wash the same bees. After my experience this fall, I will be doing more frequent checks on the hives throughout the year.


----------



## Gumpy

Update:

Today was the second day following the eleventh OAV treatment. The hive I've been documenting in this thread had a mite count or 96. This is the first time this hive has had a count under 100 on the second day following a treatment since I began this battle! I think I'm finally getting the mites under control, though the low count could be attributed to switching to a 3 day interval. 

I still have a bit of a problem in the other hive, which was at 151. I suspect there may have been drone brood in there, which I did not tear down last week so it didn't get cut out. 

I'll continue treating on my 3 day schedule for another week or two and see what happens. 

I've been thinking about the two queens I found in Hive 1. Back in Sept, I had a nuc sitting next to this hive which was queenless and in the process of making a new queen. On Sept 21, she emerged. I saw here, but I also found a second queen which had emerged on a different frame that I did not know was there. A few days later, because I still haven't learned patience, I checked for eggs. I saw one queen on some comb and while I was looking at her, she flew away! This actually happened twice on me in this nuc. Like I said, I haven't learned patience yet. Anyway, after that, I only found one queen in that nuc, and I'm wondering if maybe one of the queens came back after her mating flights and went into Hive 1 instead of the nuc. Doesn't matter. I think it's kind of cool. I'm hoping they both make it through winter as that will give me an opportunity to make up a queenright nuc in the spring without making the hive queenless. 

craig


----------



## mbc

Gumpy said:


> I'm trying to figure that out, too. I have a hard time believing all these mites were in there when I started, but I don't see any signs of robbing, and I did find drone comb last week that was filled with them. My current theory is that a 5 day interval is too long to catch a newly emerged mite in phoresis before they find another cell. The queen(s) in this hive have been very prolific, so there are always cells ready to be capped, so I'm wondering if maybe the mites just are not staying in the open bee population long enough. That's why I'm moving to a 3 day interval.


Bernard the Belgian bloke on here (sorry, I've forgotten his username) has extensive experience of oav and has an interesting theory that the oav drives mites into brood earlier than they would normally go, makes sense to me.


----------



## jean-marc

Gumpy:

It is very unlikely that your colony will still have 2 queens come spring. The scenario that you desribe is likely how the colony ended up with 2 queens. Geez, it's about time those numbers are finally coming down... 11 treatments, wow. Had you started treatments one week later I think both hives would have been doomed.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> Gumpy:
> 
> It is very unlikely that your colony will still have 2 queens come spring. The scenario that you desribe is likely how the colony ended up with 2 queens. Geez, it's about time those numbers are finally coming down... 11 treatments, wow. Had you started treatments one week later I think both hives would have been doomed.
> 
> Jean-Marc


A guy can still dream!  

I believe you are probably right that there will be only one queen come spring, but it would be fun to see them both still in there. I'm actually surprised they are both alive at this time, but I know two queen colonies are not a uncommon as people think. 

I'm really surprised by the numbers on that second hive. This one was queenless and broodless throughout August. I saved it by taking a queen cell from the nuc I was referring to. Then a couple weeks later, that nuc went queenless. I guess they had plans for that cell. They did recover and made a couple more, as I said, but they are still a pretty small colony, and I have my doubts about their ability to survive winter, but am giving them as much aid as I can.


----------



## cervus

11 OAV treatments PLUS a month-long brood break. Seems like the conventional collective regarding OAV as a mite treatment has been set by it's ears.


----------



## Gumpy

cervus said:


> 11 OAV treatments PLUS a month-long brood break. Seems like the conventional collective regarding OAV as a mite treatment has been set by it's ears.


I wouldn't go that far, just yet. I suspect some of this is related to my inexperience treating bees, the learning curve of my homemade vaporizer, as well as my ability to get the vapors into my hives. My technique has changed some since I started. It's more efficient than it was when I started and more vapors are going through the hive and in particular directly under the brood nest. 

I am, however, questioning the conventional advice on treatment frequency and number of treatments in a treatment regimen.


----------



## cervus

Gumpy said:


> I am, however, questioning the conventional advice on treatment frequency and number of treatments in a treatment regimen.


Me too after following this thread!


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

Well, I said it on another thread: 3 days apart, 7 times in a row. In summer when brood is present. You can do less by removing all the brood from a hive. But basically you treat 7 times, 3 days apart. That is the safest way to use oxalic acid vaporizing. It seems a lot of trouble, but you don't have any residues left in the wax or honey, have strong colonies coming out of winter and fewer queen losses (compared to formic acid or ...).


----------



## Gumpy

I've already decided to treat at 3 day intervals, and have begun that as I continue the battle. I don't know if I'll do 6, 7, 8 treatments normally. I need to do more thinking about the brood development timeline. 

I'm also considering using a single shot of OAV periodically to gauge mite load in the hive, rather than using a sugar roll or alcohol wash. Hit them with the acid and count the mites on the bottom board the following day.


----------



## mbc

mbc said:


> Bernard the Belgian bloke on here (sorry, I've forgotten his username) has extensive experience of oav and has an interesting theory that the oav drives mites into brood earlier than they would normally go, makes sense to me.


BernhardHeuvel Location : NRW Germany 

My apologies.
Am I right in recalling you mentioning this mite behavior where they reenter cells earlier than is usual when exposed to oxalic vapour?


----------



## Tom1617

Yep... the sugar roll days are over 4 me at this point. I will do a vape and count the next 2 days... I just updated my mite drop numbers at the end of my thread if you re interested.. all this data is making me feel comfortable with my control agenda for next season.


----------



## Gumpy

Update:

Yesterday I did the 12th OAV treatment on my two hives and two nucs. I am now on a 3 day interval. I have increased the dosage on the two hives from 2 grams to 4 grams. The nucs remain at 2 grams each, but I notice a lot of vapor exiting from the opposite nuc, so effectively the tow nucs are sharing 4 grams. I am using a hair dryer on low setting to push the vapor into the hive and help keep it from crystallizing on the vaporizer nozzle or hive entrance or bottom. I'm getting plenty of excess vapor coming out every crack and top entrance so I'm sure it permeating the entire hive. 

Today's mite drop counts: 
Hive 1: 150
Hive 2: 173 

Total mites killed so far:
Hive 1: 12204
Hive 2: 5719

Note that Hive 2 is the hive that was queenless and broodless through August. 

I'm feeling much better about my treatments and mite load reductions. I think I'll have 2 or 3 more treatments to finalize it.


----------



## psm1212

Numbers looking much better Gumpy. I am at roughly 2000 mites off one hive, 3 days out from the first treatment. 

What numbers are you wanting to see before you stop treating?


----------



## razoo

Gumpy said:


> Total mites killed so far:
> Hive 1: 12204
> Hive 2: 5719


The mind boggles, I can't imagine having the patience to count 17923 mites!


----------



## Gumpy

psm1212 said:


> Numbers looking much better Gumpy. I am at roughly 2000 mites off one hive, 3 days out from the first treatment.
> 
> What numbers are you wanting to see before you stop treating?


At a minimum, I want them under 100 the day after treating, and the second day. 

I would love to get my 3 day count below 100 but that may be overly optimistic. 

I really don't know what an acceptable load would be. Give the numbers indicated previously in this thread, a count of 150 phoretic mites at 15% would indicate 1000 mites in a hive. With the bees reducing population for winter, is that a safe mite load for the colony? I don't have that answer. 

If I treat 4 more times on the 3 day schedule, I would then have 7 treatments on 3 day intervals, as indicated elsewhere in this thread. That should cover an entire brood cycle. Actually, I think 5 would be sufficient. So, I may do 2 more and call it quits. I'll weigh that as I continue to count dead mites. 




> The mind boggles, I can't imagine having the patience to count 17923 mites!


Oh, it's not so bad. It's not like you're counting them all at once. It becomes a daily routine. Go visit the bees and see how many dead mites are on the boards. I look at it as part of my education. My goal is to learn as much about beekeeping as I can this year. Once I understand it, I can then determine how to properly manage hives without so much effort. For instance, I've already decided that rather than doing sugar rolls, it might be easier and more accurate to simply do an OAV and count the mites on the board the next couple days. The data I've getting on this treatment regimen will be instrumental to determine what my thresholds should be using that method of testing. Also, there's information to be gained about the inner workings of the hive without breaking it open. I can tell generally where the brood nest is based on the mite concentration and where the capping residue lies on the bottom board. I can see various pollen and bee parts, and sometimes other small critters. It's all just another tool I'm learning to use to my advantage.


----------



## jean-marc

If all brood was hatched 150 phoretic mites would bee a safe mite load. Apparently 1000 for winter is not. I guees with treatments at 3 day intervals things will drop quickly now. Isn't it supposed to be cold in Minnesota at this time of year?

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> If all brood was hatched 150 phoretic mites would bee a safe mite load. Apparently 1000 for winter is not. I guees with treatments at 3 day intervals things will drop quickly now. Isn't it supposed to be cold in Minnesota at this time of year?
> 
> Jean-Marc


Yeah, it's supposed to be. It got down into the low 30s at night a couple weeks ago. This past week saw 70 in the day. Bees loved that. I got to open the hive and found the two queens. This week it's in the 55-65 range. Pleasant. Working in a tee shirt on the south facing driveway is nice.

I took the motorcycle to the bee meeting in St. Cloud last night. 90 miles round trip. It was chilly, but with the electric vest, it wasn't bad.  Not often I can do that on Nov 1. 

I've thinking about the broodless thing. Wondering how one tells if the hive is broodless without breaking it apart, and wondering if it's a good idea to do that around Thanksgiving if it's cold. With as much brood and larvae as was in there on Friday, I'm thinking it may be unlikely to be broodless at Thanksgiving. Especially with the mild temps and the bees hauling in loads of pollen every day. 

Maybe these last few treatments will take care of all phoretic mites before they can enter the last few open cells (assuming the queens shut down soon).


----------



## psm1212

I think it is virtually impossible to determine a safe mite load. It all depends on the virulence of the mites. If I had a 40,000 mite load of low-virulent mites, I am probably better off than a 10,000 mite load of highly-virulent mites. But all we can do is see mites, not viruses. So we kill as many of the bastards as we can.

It is kind of like how we fight Zika and Malaria. I can get bitten by thousands of mosquitos and be just fine. You can get bitten by one and be infected.

However, the only method to fight the virus is to kill the mites.

We can kill every mite in our hives, and still lose the hives to the viruses they brought to it.


----------



## redindiaink

Gumpy said:


> For instance, I've already decided that rather than doing sugar rolls, it might be easier and more accurate to simply do an OAV and count the mites on the board the next couple days. The data I've getting on this treatment regimen will be instrumental to determine what my thresholds should be using that method of testing.


Dadent published a leaflet suggesting doing that, and our apiculture office makes similar recommendations with various miticides, except after doing OAV treatments on two hives I'm not sure I trust any of the wisdom. 

I remember thinking at the time, "if 38 mites represents 90-95% of all phoretic mites on adults and that mite drop represents 80-85% of what is under cappings. Is it? Or does it assume static numbers?" Once I finished that round of treatments on hive no. 1, 500 mites dropped. In early September I re-treated (5 treatments 5 days apart) After 24 hours: 302 mites, and by the time the fifth treatment was done about 2800 mites were counted. Post treatment, the natural mite drop was down to 20 a day with the occasional spike to 40 or so. I've been counting and monitoring this hive from below every day since I brought it home over a year and a half ago. It had a mite count of less than 1% in April (alcohol wash) and no mites in the drone brood I pulled. Natural mite drops didn't start to happen until mid June, and before OAV treatment on July 31st, there were 4 to 7 a day on average. On the first treatment day an alcohol wash said there was a mite population of 2%.

Hive no. 2 had 102 mites fall after the first 24 hours and by the morning of the third treatment brought the total to 1900 mites. Over the course of the next three days: 193, 270, 520. After inspecting the other colony I ran for my stash of Apivar. With an Apivar strip in place after 24 hours: 1986 mites and then at the 48 hour mark pushed the count to over 3000.

So, if 102 mites is 90-95% of all phoretic mites, and it represents 80-85% of what is under the cappings, that's how many mites exactly? 

I've come to the conclusion, at best, the calculation is a theoretical moving target that may, or may not, give an accurate count of the mites, or say something about the overall health of a colony. Hive no.1 has PMS so bad I should cut my losses, but I'm going to baby it hopefully learning something from the experience. The other hive shows hardly any signs of disease; some bees that died during emergence, but I haven't seen greasy hairless bees, or deformed wings. *crosses fingers and knocks on wood* With any luck I'll see bees in February bringing back willow pollen. 


On thresholds. Kim Flottum gave a talk an in it he said (paraphrasing heavily), "at one time the threshold was 20 mites per 300. Then it was 5, and now regardless of the time of year it's 1 mite per 100 bees ... viruses are escalating and are more virulent." Our apiculture office says we should treat immediately at 5% and colony damage is expected at 3%. My goal has always been 1%.

I was thinking I'd trying the Italian method of creating an artificial brood break then treat with OAV next summer, otherwise I'm thinking of abandoning this as a viable treatment method. It's a shame I thought it would allow me to be more proactive.


----------



## Gumpy

redindiaink said:


> I remember thinking at the time, "if 38 mites represents 90-95% of all phoretic mites on adults and that mite drop represents 80-85% of what is under cappings. Is it?


My understanding, based on what others have posted here, is that the phoretic mites represent only 15% of the mite load within a hive, not 80-85%. In other words, 85% of the entire mite population is inside the capped brood! In fact, this is confirmed in the Dadant link you provided. 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote. It seems like you are saying that the phoretic mites are 85% of the mite load, which is backwards.


----------



## Gumpy

redindiaink said:


> Hive no. 2 had 102 mites fall after the first 24 hours and by the morning of the third treatment brought the total to 1900 mites.


Although there's some missing information here, if I'm reading it correctly, you had 1900 mites after completion of 2 rounds of treating (on the day of the 3rd treatment). 

So you averaged 950 mites per round. 

950 / 90% = 1055 phoretic mites. 
1055 / 15% = 7033 mites within the colony. 

It looks like you killed 2883 with OAV and 3000 with Apivar for a total of 5883 total killed. So, maybe there were about 1200 mites left in the colony? 

Again, not sure I'm following all your numbers, but that's kind of how I read it, based on the percentages and numbers.


----------



## redindiaink

Gumpy said:


> My understanding, based on what others have posted here, is that the phoretic mites represent only 15% of the mite load within a hive, not 80-85%. In other words, 85% of the entire mite population is inside the capped brood! In fact, this is confirmed in the Dadant link you provided.
> 
> Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote. It seems like you are saying that the phoretic mites are 85% of the mite load, which is backwards.


You're misunderstanding me. The 38 mites that fell 24 hours after the first treatment is the 15-20% of the total mite population. At the time I guesstimated there were a further 280 mites under the cappings, but after the first round of treatments I had counted 500.


----------



## redindiaink

Gumpy said:


> Although there's some missing information here, if I'm reading it correctly, you had 1900 mites after completion of 2 rounds of treating (on the day of the 3rd treatment).
> 
> So you averaged 950 mites per round.
> 
> 950 / 90% = 1055 phoretic mites.
> 1055 / 15% = 7033 mites within the colony.
> 
> It looks like you killed 2883 with OAV and 3000 with Apivar for a total of 5883 total killed. So, maybe there were about 1200 mites left in the colony?
> 
> Again, not sure I'm following all your numbers, but that's kind of how I read it, based on the percentages and numbers.



There isn't any missing information. Mite counts on a day by day basis: 102, 125, 260, 160, 170, 302, 100, 125, 175, 180, 173, 203, 200 (morning before the third treatment) 193, 270, 520. 

Dadent says to treat ONCE. Then to count the number of mites that drop 24 hours later. That number is said to represent 15% of the total number of mites in the hive, that 85% more are under the cappings. 

But I don't think the math adds up so I outlined why I thought so.


----------



## viesest

redindiaink said:


> But I don't think the math adds up so I outlined why I thought so.


Multiply number of mites by two after twenty days.

Anyway, at a beginning of August, 10 or more mites after treatment are call for further intensive treatments.
In September and October phoretic mites should be knocked down as soon as possible, because they are dangerous for colony due to viruses they spread.
Also treatments should be selective, for different colonies different frequency of treatments from 3 days to 3 weeks.


----------



## Gumpy

redindiaink said:


> There isn't any missing information. Mite counts on a day by day basis: 102, 125, 260, 160, 170, 302, 100, 125, 175, 180, 173, 203, 200 (morning before the third treatment) 193, 270, 520.
> 
> Dadent says to treat ONCE. Then to count the number of mites that drop 24 hours later. That number is said to represent 15% of the total number of mites in the hive, that 85% more are under the cappings.
> 
> But I don't think the math adds up so I outlined why I thought so.


Ok, I see your numbers. But I'm not sure I agree on the 24 hour representation of 15%. I believe that a single treatment kills more mites than you see on the following day. I believe it takes a few days for the bees to discard the remainder. I don't think the mite drops on the 2nd and 3rd days are new dead mites. I think they are just more of the phoretic load that was there when you vaporized. 

Of course I could be wrong.


----------



## viesest

Gumpy said:


> Ok, I see your numbers. But I'm not sure I agree on the 24 hour representation of 15%. I believe that a single treatment kills more mites than you see on the following day. I believe it takes a few days for the bees to discard the remainder. I don't think the mite drops on the 2nd and 3rd days are new dead mites. I think they are just more of the phoretic load that was there when you vaporized.
> 
> Of course I could be wrong.


You are not wrong. The mite drop after winter (brood-less) treatment is up to three to four weeks. (Yet situation when brood is present is complicated)
I would like to point out that time of year is more important then exact number of mites in beehive.
Drop of 40 mites in August is very high, but in October can be ignored until winter treatment.


----------



## redindiaink

Gumpy said:


> Ok, I see your numbers. But I'm not sure I agree on the 24 hour representation of 15%. I believe that a single treatment kills more mites than you see on the following day. I believe it takes a few days for the bees to discard the remainder. I don't think the mite drops on the 2nd and 3rd days are new dead mites. I think they are just more of the phoretic load that was there when you vaporized.
> 
> Of course I could be wrong.


You and me both, but this is being suggested as a quick n painless, not to mention economical, predictive model to enable us to make decisions on whether to treat. I also wonder if that mite drop really represents 15% of the total mite population because I've seen ratios of 33/66 and 25/75 phoretic/under cappings (breeding) mentioned. And then there's factoring in the efficacy of the treatment itself on the mites that dropped after a treatment which I think must count for something ... all this math makes my head hurt, yet I don't think I'm any closer to a method that will work on a larger, heck any, scale beyond the two hives I did the counts on. I honestly don't know what to think about any of it.


----------



## viesest

According to number of mites threshold is defined, and source for calculating number of mites is mite drop (OAV, sugar roll, alcohol wash).
So, thresholds can be defined for every testing type and for each time of the year.


----------



## Gumpy

Update:

The three day total for the thirteenth treatment was: 
Hive 1: 321
Hive 2: 273

There was a slight increase on Hive 1 by 30. Hive 2 was a decrease of 28. 

I did the fourteenth treatment yesterday. Today's counts:
Hive 1: 112
Hive 2: 105

Still higher than I had hoped. I have 2 treatments left which will take me through a complete brood cycle using 3 day interval. I'm going to stop after that. 

Overall mites killed by OAV since Sept 13:
Hive 1: 12778
Hive 2: 6229


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

That certainly is a lot of mites per colony. Phew.

Edit: the oldtimers here told me that in the beginning a drop of 10,000 mites per hive was normal and the colonies still survived winter with one winter treatment only. Nowadays with so many mites the colonies usually break down early in summer. Which they didn't when varroa came to us. Back than the beekeepers treated once at wintertime and had a drop of 10,000 mites. That was it. For sure time has changed. :scratch:

It seems to be a lot of work vaporizing, but at least you can really knock them down and next year you have much better counts.


----------



## Hillbillybees

No expert but I would start wondering where the threshold is for mites left in hive versus damage to colony from so many treatments. You can get it down to zero mites by killing your hive. The old saying of "too much of a good thing". Just wondering. There has to be some negative effect of treating 14 times. Anybody else feel like this? I could be wrong. I would have my queen and some shook bees in a different box and treat the brood and their bees once a week until all brood is emerged and I would think that would wrap it up. Maybe hit the queen box one more time then rejoin them. Thousands of hives are getting ten less treatments and they are fine.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

Hillbillybees said:


> There has to be some negative effect of treating 14 times.


That's the good thing about oxalic acid vaporizing. From my experience (and others) it doesn't hurt the bees at all. 

You can treat them 30 times a row, they'll winter fine. 



Hillbillybees said:


> I would have my queen and some shook bees in a different box and treat the brood and their bees once a week until all brood is emerged and I would think that would wrap it up.


:thumbsup:


----------



## Gumpy

Hillbillybees said:


> No expert but I would start wondering where the threshold is for mites left in hive versus damage to colony from so many treatments. You can get it down to zero mites by killing your hive. The old saying of "too much of a good thing". Just wondering. There has to be some negative effect of treating 14 times. Anybody else feel like this? I could be wrong. I would have my queen and some shook bees in a different box and treat the brood and their bees once a week until all brood is emerged and I would think that would wrap it up. Maybe hit the queen box one more time then rejoin them. Thousands of hives are getting ten less treatments and they are fine.


I have been wondering where the threshold is. There isn't much guidance on that. Someone suggested 20 or less after a single treatment. I think that may not be realistic, after what I've been experiencing. But it seems I need to find that point to stop, and then consider one or two treatments in the winter when they are broodless. How do I know when they are broodless? I don't think it's a good idea to break into the hive in early Dec when the temps are in the 30s or lower. 

Thousands of hives get ten less treatments and still die during winter. Is there any correlation? I don't know. Did they die because three treatments given 7 days apart didn't have an effect on the mite loads? Maybe. From what I've been seeing, not many people count dead mites, and a good majority don't even bother to test for mites but simply follow the conventional wisdom of treating 3 times 5-7 days apart and then one time around the first of December when the hive is "broodless". I can't figure out how one can consider this effective if you don't even know what your mite load is, or the efficacy of your treatment. Maybe none of that matters. I know that 5 days after my third treatment, I had killed a total of 2563 mites in Hive 1. If I had followed the conventional wisdom and stopped treatment at that time, I would have left over 10000 mites in my hive. That was 5 weeks ago at a time when there were still 4 full frames of brood being raised. Can you imagine the number of mites that would have become in that time frame? Maybe I should have put Apivar in at that time! What's the threshold for making a decision to switch treatments to something else? 

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. There are many say it can't be good for the bees, but just as many saying it won't hurt them. I know that a week and a half ago, there were 2 queens in the hive, and this after ten treatments. I also know that there are 12778 less mites in the world to terrorize my bees. At the very least, I'm being as open about this as I can so maybe others can learn from my experience, whether it turns out good or bad.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

Gumpy said:


> I don't know if I'm doing the right thing.


Wait until you see your hives during the next years. Most people report terrible mite drops in their first year of using oxalic acid vaporizing. The fun part starts next year (if your bees survive that inital high mite population...). Because next year the mite population will start very low and this becomes visible in very strong hives. Next summer you find less mites when you start treating. 



Gumpy said:


> There are many say it can't be good for the bees,


Usually those who never used a vaporizer (or they used a self-made one :lookout.



Gumpy said:


> but just as many saying it won't hurt them.


Usually those who are actually using it.



Gumpy said:


> I also know that there are 12778 less mites in the world to terrorize my bees.


:thumbsup: Exactly so. I'd guess Apivar probably would have knocked them down, too. But less so with formic acid or thymol or...


----------



## Gumpy

BernhardHeuvel said:


> Wait until you see your hives during the next years. Most people report terrible mite drops in their first year of using oxalic acid vaporizing. The fun part starts next year (if your bees survive that inital high mite population...). Because next year the mite population will start very low and this becomes visible in very strong hives. Next summer you find less mites when you start treating.


Well, I'm quickly losing my reservations about it. I just went through all the colonies. I've been treating all of them when I treat, even though I only have bottom board inserts on the two hives. I don't have them on the two nucs (Michael Palmer divided 4-frame, three high, though the top is pretty much empty). Anyway, Hive 1 and Nuc 2 each have two queens! That nuc is the one that had two queens emerge, and I was speculating one went into Hive 1. So, I don't know the story on Hive 1 getting an additional queen, but I'm not complaining. Nuc 1 is doing well. Has really cut back on brood rearing, but very active on the warm days. Hive 2 is blowing up with bees and has 5 frames FULL of capped brood - BOTH SIDES! This hive is going to be astronomical next spring. This is the hive that was queenless and broodless in August. I'm really happy with what I see there. 



> Usually those who never used a vaporizer (or they used a self-made one :lookout.
> /
> 
> 
> 
> Well, mine is home made, but I think I've got it pretty well figured out and it seems to be doing a great job for me. Not sure how well it would work if I had more hives, but I've become more efficient in vaporizing them.
Click to expand...


----------



## Hillbillybees

Just cage your queen and keep hammering your bees with acid and you'll get them. You need to change something up. Doing the same thing forever is not feasible. Put the queen in with nothing but drone comb and bees while treating the other bees with brood in a nuc. Do something different. DO anything different than what has not yet worked. 21 days minus 8 days uncapped = 13 days. SO treat them everyday for 15 days. DO something different. DO an alcohol wash and see what the count is. I would love to know that number. I do know I want to hire you to do my OAV.


----------



## Gumpy

Hillbillybees said:


> Just cage your queen and keep hammering your bees with acid and you'll get them. You need to change something up. Doing the same thing forever is not feasible. Put the queen in with nothing but drone comb and bees while treating the other bees with brood in a nuc. Do something different. DO anything different than what has not yet worked. 21 days minus 8 days uncapped = 13 days. SO treat them everyday for 15 days. DO something different. DO an alcohol wash and see what the count is. I would love to know that number.


I am doing something different. I switched to the 3 day treatment schedule and it seems to be working. The numbers are coming down. 

I think next year I'll have a different approach. I'll have some hard earned experience and data, and I can then make some better judgments on testing and treatment. 




> I do know I want to hire you to do my OAV.


I'm pretty sure you can't afford me! But maybe in a year or two I'll have figured out how to do it more efficiently and will share that. I'm really intrigued by a couple propane vaporizers I saw in another thread, and may play with that idea. 

I've already stopped the whole "leave the hive sealed up for 10 minutes" thing. Now I pump the vapor in, pull the vaporizer from the entrance and start cooling it to do the next one. It's taking about 20 minutes to do 4 hives, where as before it was taking about 50 minutes. I replace my standard entrance reducer with a piece of board cut to reduce the entrance to 3 inches, which is the size of my vaporizer nozzle. I also slide some boards in between the bottom board and the insert to seal off the screen bottom. When the vapor starts coming out the top entrance, I place my thumb over it. While the next hive is vaporizing, I replace the entrance reducer and pull the bottom board plugs. Done! I know the vapor is permeating the hive because it comes out all seams.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

With OAD mites were falling down for about 2 week after treatment.

It takes at least couple days for the mite fall to start.

I remember once falling over 8500 mites... with 1 OAD. Simple compared to 30 OAV...


----------



## Saltybee

Hillbillybees said:


> You need to change something up. .


Thoughts without conclusions; is the shorter cycle outside cells an adaptation or keeper based selective breeding brought on by a regular treatment schedule? better to be erratic?

Is part of the collapsing hive mite bomb scenario simply that interbreeding takes place when strangers enter the hive and overcrowding causes unrelated mites to enter the same cell. Not simply a more verliant virus but a more genetically diverse mite.


----------



## Gumpy

Update. 3rd day following previous treatment.

3-day totals: 
Hive 1: 238
Hive 2: 258

Overall totals:
Hive 1: 12904
Hive 2: 6382

My 3-day treatment counts continue to fall, but I'm feeling good about the outcome and the overall health of the hives. I have 2 queens in two of the colonies, that I know for certain. Hive 2 has 5 full double sided frames of brood, so it will be interesting to see how the numbers are affected as they emerge. I have to think that queen will need to slow down pretty soon. I guess she's making up for lost time when the hive was queenless and broodless in August. She came from a cell I had in a nuc and used to save that hive. That hive struggled from installation until it went queenless. Now it's my strongest colony. 

I'm planning one more treatment on Sunday and will monitor the bottom board after that for a week or so. 

There's been a lot of criticism related to excessive number of treatments, my management techniques, and even some questioning of my count numbers in other threads related to OAV. That's ok. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. This is my first year with bees, and frankly, information and sound advice has been difficult to obtain. Most of the battle is learning how to weed out the BS from everything you read or watch and figure out how much of it applies to my location and climate. I acknowledge mistakes were made on my part which most likely contributed significantly to my mite problem late in the season. But I believe I have a pretty good understanding of it now. The comments throughout this thread have been extremely helpful getting to that understanding, and I thank each and every one who have contributed. 

I'll be doing some things differently next year.


----------



## psm1212

I have learned a lot from this thread as well. I am often bewildered that something as benign as discussions on treatments of honeybee parasites can arouse such fervor. But I understand the topic is very important to many of us. It was nice to get a thread that identified a problem and be able to watch how the beek dealt with it and got it under control. A lot can be learned from those stories. Too often, we get the "Help, my bees disappeared" thread that often leads to conjecture from everything from varroa to alien abduction. They are not very helpful (though I have admittedly started a few). 

I don't mind posting my mistakes either. The first package I installed, I placed the queen cage right under the sugar syrup. I found her drowned in the cage two days later. I won't do that again.

I find those that dogmatically proclaim a sole solution to be very unreliable sources of information for me. I learn much more from threads such as these.


----------



## AHudd

Gumpy said:


> Update. 3rd day following previous treatment.
> 
> 3-day totals:
> Hive 1: 238
> Hive 2: 258
> 
> Overall totals:
> Hive 1: 12904
> Hive 2: 6382
> 
> My 3-day treatment counts continue to fall, but I'm feeling good about the outcome and the overall health of the hives. I have 2 queens in two of the colonies, that I know for certain. Hive 2 has 5 full double sided frames of brood, so it will be interesting to see how the numbers are affected as they emerge. I have to think that queen will need to slow down pretty soon. I guess she's making up for lost time when the hive was queenless and broodless in August. She came from a cell I had in a nuc and used to save that hive. That hive struggled from installation until it went queenless. Now it's my strongest colony. .


She may think it is Springtime, given the day length and temps. Watch for Queen cells. 

Good luck,
Alex


----------



## Gumpy

Update. 

The previous 3-day treatment cycle ended yesterday. 

3-day totals:
Hive 1: 178
Hive 2: 194

Overall totals: 
Hive 1: 13082
Hive 2: 6576

I did what I think will be the final application of OAV yesterday. 
Today's counts:
Hive 1: 64
Hive 2: 64

While some of you may think these numbers high, considering where I've come from, I'm very excited. I started treating on Sept 13. This is the first time that my Hive 1 counts have been under 100 on the first day following a treatment! 

I will probably wait now until about mid-December and do two more treatments spaced 3 days apart.


----------



## psm1212

Gumpy: I finally got mine under 100 yesterday on a 24 hour drop. I was thinking of calling it quits if my 3 day count was still under 100. If not, I might hit it again. For me, 100 was just a nice round number. Far better than the 1800 I had on the first day after I started.

Many people talk about treatment thresholds for alcohol washes, but I have not seen any for mite drops after OAV treatments. I suppose there are probably too many variables to really come up with a threshold standard. 

Right or wrong, I think our bees have a much better chance of making it through the winter than they did when we started.


----------



## Gumpy

You are absolutely correct about that. I see and read about so many people who treat 3 rounds at 5 or 7 day intervals and call it good, without knowing what they've accomplished and without having any idea if it even did any good. Then come spring they wonder why they lost so many hives. 

I certainly don't know enough about any of this to claim it's the correct approach. In fact, I think I'd have been better off using Apivar, but at the time, I had to make some decisions based on very little information. I guess time will tell if I made the correct one. 

I'm amazed how quickly your numbers have dropped. I sure hope you see results come next spring!


----------



## jean-marc

I am happy for you that you are seeing drops under 100 after 2 months of treatments Gumpy. I almost lost faith in you...lol. As far as Apivar... woulda coulda shoulda. If you are going to use Apivar use it after the honeyflow. I think in Minnesota come mid August you are pretty much done unless you have an exceptional year. I don't remeber you mentionning it but I do hope you fed your colonies syrup. 4-6 gallons of thick syrup should get them to a good overwintering weight. It would be somewhat tragic that if after 20 000 mites missed their opportunity to kill your colonies they end up starving.

Jean-Marc


----------



## Gumpy

jean-marc said:


> I am happy for you that you are seeing drops under 100 after 2 months of treatments Gumpy. I almost lost faith in you...lol. As far as Apivar... woulda coulda shoulda. If you are going to use Apivar use it after the honeyflow. I think in Minnesota come mid August you are pretty much done unless you have an exceptional year. I don't remeber you mentionning it but I do hope you fed your colonies syrup. 4-6 gallons of thick syrup should get them to a good overwintering weight. It would be somewhat tragic that if after 20 000 mites missed their opportunity to kill your colonies they end up starving.
> 
> Jean-Marc



Oh, ye of little faith! :lookout:

I did feed 2:1 heavily to the two hives. They are in 3 deeps and I had the weights up to 145 lbs. The top box has 8 frames full of capped syrup. There is capped syrup in the middle, also. The bottom deep is empty brood comb. It's been warm here, and they've been active, and the weights have dropped to 135 lbs. already. But it's starting to get cool now and they are less active.

I had feeder jars on top of the two nucs, and thought they were doing well, but realized last week they are light. Hard to weigh the divided MP style nucs. So I put the frame feeders in them last Wed with 2:1, but with the weather cooling off they're not taking it very fast (< a quart in 5 days). I'll be putting a sugar board on top of the nucs. I think I'll hold off on putting the sugar on the hives unless and until they need it in Feb or Mar. I already have them made up, so it will be easy to put one on if necessary.


----------



## crofter

Gumpy said:


> You are absolutely correct about that. I see and read about so many people who treat 3 rounds at 5 or 7 day intervals and call it good, without knowing what they've accomplished and without having any idea if it even did any good. Then come spring they wonder why they lost so many hives.


Then you will hear that they treated and their bees still died! A _half vast_ approach is not treating; that is only going through the motions


----------



## Mike Gillmore

Gumpy said:


> I see and read about so many people who treat 3 rounds at 5 or 7 day intervals and call it good, without knowing what they've accomplished and without having any idea if it even did any good. Then come spring they wonder why they lost so many hives.


I haven't really run across that many who experience this. Guess I'm hanging with the wrong crowd.


----------



## AHudd

Gumpy said:


> You are absolutely correct about that. I see and read about so many people who treat 3 rounds at 5 or 7 day intervals and call it good, without knowing what they've accomplished and without having any idea if it even did any good. Then come spring they wonder why they lost so many hives.


This doesn't seem to be the case from what I read.

I think your experience has drawn so much attention because of its uniqueness.
I'm glad to see you have things under control.

Alexl


----------



## Gumpy

Final update:

Yesterday was day 3 following the final application of OAV (#16, for those who are counting, those who care, or those who just want something to criticize). 

My 3 day treatment totals for this application:
Hive 1: 112
Hive 2: 114

The overall total of mites killed since beginning the battle on Sept 13:
Hive 1: 13194
Hive 2: 6690

This was the 7th treatment in the 3-day interval which should encompass an entire cycle of capped brood. Unfortunately, my 3-day numbers did not get below 100, which was the artificial threshold I had set as my guideline. However, I have decided to discontinue the current application regimen and do two final applications sometime in December when the colonies will hopefully be broodless, or nearly so. 

Here's what I know. 
- My bees are still alive. They seem very healthy, at least to my inexperienced eye. 
- My queens are still alive. At least two of my four colonies have 2 queens as of last week.
- One of the colonies (single queen, as far as I know) still has 5 frames full (both sides) of capped brood as of last week. 
- There are 19884 fewer mites between two of my colonies. My two nucs have solid bottoms, so I could not count them, but the solid bottom boards are littered with dead mites. 
- I'm absolutely certain I have not killed every mite in my colonies. 
- I made several mistakes which contributed to this problem. I waited too long to treat. I probably should have use Apivar instead of OAV. 
- My homemade vaporizer works fine. 
- Counting the number of dead mites was critical to knowing whether my applications were effective.

Here's what I think:
- Switching to the 3 day interval was the right decision. With a 4.5 day average phoretic phase of the varroa mite, 5 to 7 days application cycles are not sufficient. OAV only works on phoretic mites. You have to catch them before they crawl back into another cell. 
- Sugar rolls do not provide accurate results. In the future, I will periodically do a single OAV application to gauge mite load and use the 3-day count results to determine if I should continue with a 3 day regiment of OAV. 


Oh, here's another thing I know for certain: All of the people who commented on this, both to this thread and in private messages really helped me to get through it. Even those who criticized and speculated on what I was doing wrong. It all gave me food for thought, and I appreciate each and every one of you.


----------



## Hillbillybees

Good luck with them Gumpy. If something happens it wont be for lack of trying.


----------



## Forgiven

Terrifying thread 

Hope I'll never get such mite numbers, shorter season is kind of a blessing when it comes to mites.

Also this kind of agrees with the domestic recommendation that you only use oxalic acid on broodless hives, seems like a lot of work.
Formic acid or thymol if there's brood present, slower evaporation providing prolonged effect on mites emerging from brood over the period?


----------



## psm1212

I appreciate you sharing the experience. We can all take what we want from it.


----------



## Mike Gillmore

Gumpy said:


> Here's what I know. .....
> - One of the colonies (single queen, as far as I know) still has 5 frames full (both sides) of capped brood as of last week.


In MN at this time of year, I find this very unusual. Maybe others can chime in with their thoughts. 

I'm located south of you and my colonies are well on their way to being broodless. This has no doubt been a large part of your endless mite issue. Your queens don't seem to know when to quit.

I may not personally agree with your treatment regimen, but I applaud you for your effort and determination. Hope this works out for you. 

You may want to consider replacing your queens next year with Carniolan queens, which I think might be better suited for our northern climate and probably will make it a bit easier for you to control the V-mites.


----------



## Gumpy

Update - January 1, 2017

28° today. I checked the quilt boxes for moisture. The one over the MP divided nuc is wet on top, dry on bottom. The ones over the two hives are dry. 

I couldn't wait. I opened the tops to see if they are alive. When I lifted the quilt box on the nucs, there were bees all over the top of the sugar board from Nuc 1. A few came to tell me they didn't like that, so I immediately put it back on. They are doing quite well, I think. 

I did not see bees in Nuc 2 and didn't want to pull the candy board which is shared with Nuc 1, with the bees so active on that side. I'll have to wait for temps to get into the upper 30s to check them. I've been concerned about this nuc from the beginning of winter. They were late getting a mated queen and didn't store much food. Wouldn't take syrup. I gave them a frame of syrup 2 weeks ago from one of the hives. They were alive at that time, but there were a LOT of dead bees on the bottom board. I'm not really expecting this nuc to survive through winter, so if they do it will be a bonus. They have a nice young queen who was cranking out brood in Oct, so if they do make it they should do nicely in the buildup this spring.

In Hive 1, there was a small cluster in the upper corner of the second deep. Maybe 3 seams of bees. Lots of syrup still in the top above them. Seemed smaller than I expected, but I didn't go further. They are alive. Not a lot of cappings and debris on the bottom board insert and only a couple mites (2 weeks since cleaning). 

Saw a few live bees in the syrup combs in the top deep. I didn't see the cluster and chose not to disrupt this one. They had a lot of cappings and debris on the bottom board insert, only about 5 mites that I could see. I think they are doing well and eating well. Still a lot of syrup in the top deep. 

Hoping for a day or two in the upper 30s in January. I think I'll hit them with a dose of OAV then. 

I think this would have been a much different update if I had not persisted with the OAV in Oct and Nov.


----------



## crofter

Gumpy; 

What do you call "frass"? I only know it referred to as the white little piles of mite feces seen adhering to the sides of cells. Never heard of it being visible on bottom board.


----------



## Gumpy

crofter said:


> Gumpy;
> 
> What do you call "frass"? I only know it referred to as the white little piles of mite feces seen adhering to the sides of cells. Never heard of it being visible on bottom board.


Oh, I think you're correct. I'm sure that's a mistake on my part. I'll fix that. 

I was referring to the cappings and other crap dropped as they feed.


----------



## Kuro

Gumpy,
Good to hear that your bees are still alive. I had a similar mite/OAV experience as you did as I briefly mentioned in post #60, I too persisted with OAV until early December, and yes, my bees are still alive. I do not think I will ever do this again, but just for a record, here is my OAV horror story.

In summer 2016, I did a series of oxalic acid vaporization (OAV) for varroa mite control, because I was impressed by its efficacy in the previous winter. I also had an impression that many beekeepers successfully treat their colonies with three weekly OAVs during summer. 

I started in mid August, when varroa population was quite small. However, six vaporizations every 4 days did not bring their numbers down. During September, I let surviving mites double every week (I should have switched to some other treatment method then). At the end of September, I decided to do another round, and ended up doing 24 vaporizations non-stop until winter. I changed the way I do OAV and later switched to 3-day intervals, but mites just kept falling. In late November - early December, I resorted to every other day vaporization and finally brought them down. I do not really know whether the every other day schedule did the trick or the bees had simply stopped brooding by then. 

Why does OAV during summer-fall work for other beekeepers but not for me? Emergence of OA resistant varroa (not reported in the past ~20 years, I think) in my 3-hive apiary within a year is highly unlikely. I can only think of a few possibilities.

1. Some technical errors causing under-dosage of OA.
2. Those who successfully do summer OAV have better bees; not quite treatment−free but more varroa-resistant than typical packaged bees (Queen#1 came with a 2015 spring package from California, Queen#2 was bought from a local apiary in summer 2016, both of them are Carniolan. Queen#3 was #1’s daughter, born spring 2016). 
3. My August treatment was good enough (despite varroa infestation during mid-late fall, I did not find K-winged bees and all three hives are well populated and look healthy as of 12/30/16).

***********(for those who have time to read more)******************

Here are the details about the OAV treatment of my 3 hives (Aug-Dec 2016). Hives#1 and #2 were 8-frame double deeps and also had a medium honey super until 10/23(#1) and 9/24(#2). Honey supers were temporarily removed during vaporization. Hive#3 was a 5-frame nuc (deep+medium). Hive#2/#3 had been treated with a half dose MAQS (formic acid) from 7/3 to 7/9, before splitting/re-queening on 7/9 (no brood break). OAVs were performed in early mornings. 1/2 tsp (Hives#1 and #2) or 1/3 tsp (#3) of OA (Savogran 10501 Wood Bleach) were vaporized using Mannlake vaporizer. Hives were closed for 10 minutes (the vaporizer was disconnected at 3.5 min. Sublimation of OA was completed by ~5 min).

Round#1: 8/11-8/31, every 4 days, 6 vaps through the screen bottom with the solid bottom below. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.
Hive#1 22, 70, 97, 94, 94, 69
Hive#2 9, 9, 46, 57, 40, 34
Hive#3 0, 3, 2, 15, 11, 8

Natural mite drop (48hrs) between Round#1 and Round#2 (9/15, 9/22, 9/29)
Hive#1 17, 36, 72
Hive#2 11, 17, 26
Hive#3 3, 5, 16 

Round#2A: 9/29-10/31, every 4 days. For Hives#1 and #2, 6 vaps from the top in the shim then 3 vaps from the bottom NOT through the screen. For Hive#3, 9 vaps from the top in the shim. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.
Hive#1 206, 449, 367, 175, 146, 213, 337, 535, 375
Hive#2 73, 69, 87, 120, 105, 272, 273, 349, 352 
Hive#3 74, 98, 71, 28, 37, 28, 49, 107, 88

Round#2B: 11/3-11/21, every 3 days. 7 vaps from the bottom NOT through the screen for Hives #1 and #2, from the top in the shim for Hive#3. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.
Hive#1 494, 400, 333, 262, 164, 218, 280
Hive#2 296, 341, 391, 338, 473, 506, 203
Hive#3 104, 105, 206, 99, 56, 69, 267

Round#2C: 11/23-12/7, every other day. 8 vaps by the same method as Round#2B. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.
Hive#1 322, 187, 129, 41, 25, 16, 10, 12
Hive#2 253, 232, 202, 132, 140, 51, 16, 9
Hive#3 238, 110, 75, 104, 49, 14, 9, 6

Natural mite drop (48hrs) after Round#2 (12/16, 12/23)
Hive#1 0, 1
Hive#2 0, 0 
Hive#3 2, 0


----------



## Gumpy

Holy crap! Welcome to the club. I was afraid maybe I was the only member! I'm glad your bees are alive. Please update as winter progresses. 

I'm still processing what happened with mine. I'm going to make some changes, but haven't finalized that yet. I think next summer I'll do some comparisons between using alcohol wash, sugar roll, and single OAV to gauge mite load. Hoping to make a vaporizer that is a bit easier to use, too. Ultimately I think I'll end up using the single OAV as my monitor, but I want to do comparisons to determine what it can tell me.


----------



## Stephenpbird

Kuro said:


> Round#1: 8/11-8/31, every 4 days, 6 vaps *through the screen bottom with the solid bottom below*. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.


From my own limited experience, I encourage you strongly to examine or better still change this practice. My reasons for discontinuing it are

1. The vaporizer was often pushed in along the solid bottom collecting hive debris before it, which obviously does not help vaporization. I would often find OA in a crusty solid mess on the bottom board. I think the debris prevented the vaporizer getting up to the correct temperature. 

2. Sometimes I had a large amount of OA crystals forming on the metal screen above it.

3. The sump, created by the SBB, seemed to retain a large part of the vapor. As the bees fanned a vortex was created and the OA vapor seemed to stay in the SBB. I am not sure if the screen I used to use was too fine but I am sure it affected the efficacy of the treatment.

I have had very little problems since I changed, now I just push the vaporizer through the entrance so it sits on top of the metal screen, with a solid bottom board below. Beware of fine aluminum screens, sometimes they short circuit my vaporizer.


----------



## cheryl1

Are there quite a few other hives in your area? Wild or managed? Maybe they are bringing hitchikers home after robbing?


----------



## Gumpy

cheryl1 said:


> Are there quite a few other hives in your area? Wild or managed? Maybe they are bringing hitchikers home after robbing?


Only 2 hives I'm aware of within 2 miles. There may be others I don't know about, but I didn't really get the feeling they were robbing anything. Didn't see them filling the space with honey at an increased rate. I had to feed a lot to get them up to 145 lbs.


----------



## Kuro

Stephenpbird (post#140);
Very good point, when I was doing “though the screen bottom” method, I sometimes found a little bit of OA crystals on the mite board (must have fallen from crystalized OA on the screen). Later I switched to “from the top in the shim” or “from the bottom NOT through the screen (pretty much the same way as you do)” method, but by then, there probably were too many mites to deal with. 

cheryl1 (post#141);
Yes, it is a possibility. I do see honey bees which look much lighter in color than mine in the neighborhood (mostly residential with lots of large trees, no farms). However, like the OP, I never noticed a sudden increase in honey storage without flow, and my full-sized hives never robbed my nuc.


----------



## Creed bee

I did a mite count during a three week treatment period with ApaLifeVar a few years back in early Sept. I counted dead mites once per week when I went into the hive to add the new wafer. My numbers were: Week 1: 1,632; Week 2: 1,114; Week 3: 318.

I will add that I had been closely tracking that hive throughout the year doing 24 hr mite drop counts once a week - At the time of the treatment I was running about 4-5 mites/24 hr but that number was a sustained two week increase over the 1-3 mites/24hr I had been seeing with that hive all of which sparked me into doing the treatment.

I was truly shocked at the number of mites that came off that hive during the treatment and **** glad I did the treatment. 

Not OA numbers but dead mite counts due to treatment from a full sized mature hive.


----------



## shinbone

Fascinating information. Gumpy - Thanks for the careful work and reporting your results.

A couple of data points don't prove a theory, especially in beekeeping, but I always felt that, when brood is present, an OAV treatment interval longer than the average 4 day phoretic period of mites would be very inefficient. Giving the mites a few extra days to go back into cells just doesn't make sense. This thread bears that out.

I have been doing a single OAV treatment at the end of November when my hives are broodless, so I never put the short-treatment-interval idea to the test, though.


----------



## Gumpy

Well, it's the 17th of January and I've lost 2 of my colonies; One nuc, and Hive 1, which is the hive I killed 13000 mites in. The other nuc and hive are doing well, so far. 

I went out to the hives a couple days ago and saw dead bees on the snow in front of the entrances of Hive 2 and Nuc 1, but nothing in front of Hive 1 and Nuc 2. Today I went out and checked and found the two were dead. 

I cleaned out the hive. There were thousands of dead bees! Three quart jars full. I can't tell if they froze or starved. They were clustered with their heads in the cells, but there was honey and syrup all around them. They were in the front corner, near the top of the middle box. The top box had 7+ frames of syrup, some capped, some open. They didn't move up. They were alive on Jan 1, but they didn't move from their position. We had temps in the mid teens below zero in the last couple weeks. I found both queens in the pile of dead bees. I see a few mites in the pile of dead bees, but not many. I did not do an alcohol wash. 

I haven't cleaned the nuc out, as it shares a divided box with the remaining nuc and there's a shared sugar board on top which the remaining nuc is very actively eating. Temps are in the low 30s so I didn't want to open the box for very long. Suppose to be mid 40s in a few days, so I may clean them out at that time, and evaluate the food left in the two remaining colonies and augment with frames from the dead hive if necessary. I put a sugar board on the remaining hive today, even though they have plenty of syrup around them. They were right at the top, so the sugar will be right there if they need it.

So that's a bit discouraging. I thought they were in good shape going into winter, especially the hive. I just hope these last two colonies can make it another 3 to 4 months. We certainly are not done with winter here.


----------



## crofter

Yes a bit discouraging after all that effort but on the other hand it probably saved the others and lesson learned. I am guessing that by the time the mite count was effectively brought down that there was not time enough left to rear the full complement of uncompromised "fat winter bees". Still having uncapped syrup might suggest that the feeding was on the late side. I have seen it suggested that the work of drying down the syrup late in a do or die manner exhausts much of the viteogellin reserves of the bees. That is above my pay grade but I do know that being early with mite control and feeding has given me zero winter losses. I should say "along with good wrapping and moisture control.

I am sure you will be onto those mites early next season! Your experience with how hard mites are to control on heavily brooding hives has been of value to others, (or should be!)


----------



## Gumpy

You are probably correct regarding the feeding time. I had the feeders in the hives until mid-Oct when the two hives reached 145 lbs. I went later with them in the nucs because I misjudged their stores. The hive took it in well, but much of it didn't get capped. As a result, the uncapped syrup has been leaking down and out the bottom, as the cold expands it in the upper box. I don't think this contributed to the loss, but there were some sticky bees throughout the hive. Interesting, not all bees were in the cluster. Many were scattered around the hive, and just seemed to die where they were at the time. I'm kind of leaning toward freezing as the cause because of that, and because of all the reserves that were left, but maybe they just couldn't move out of that corner and starved even though there was food virtually in the next cell over! If they starved, it wasn't because there wasn't plenty of food. 

I had 1" of rigid polyiso foam insulation wrapped around them. Some of my boxes have 3/4" cleat handles, so the foam does not get right up against the box on the ends. I'm wondering if that air space might have contributed. They are well blocked from wind with a 6' fence just 2 feet away on the north, east and west sides. Plus, the three stacks sit side by side on the stand with no space between them. The side insulation touches between the outer hives and the middle nucs. I had on a quilt box with shavings and three 3/4" vent holes each side, plus 1 1/2" pink foam above that. The quilt box shavings are dry (they are getting pretty damp in the nucs, so will change those in a couple days). 

Well, if my other two colonies survive, I can do some splitting and get back to where I was early. I have a lot of drawn comb in the dead hives, so I can use that to make some nucs and build up from there.


----------



## razoo

So sorry to hear this, especially after all the effort you put in to get those mites down. So often we hear "too little too late" and I suspect that might have been the car for you this year. 
Rooting for better results for you next season!


----------



## crofter

You will be in a whole lot stronger position next season for a number of reasons! The drawn comb being a big one.


----------



## Kuro

Gumpy,
I’m sorry for your loss. I hope the remaining two will make it. Guessing from the numbers, my hives had as many mites as yours in late fall, but our winter is much milder than yours and we had a good fall flow. So far my three colonies look ok, occasionally taking cleansing flight. I did one last OAV on 1/14, to kill whoever survived the last year’s fiasco (very few did, 48h drop = 1, 0, 0, see below for all data). 

My varroa management plan for 2017 is to treat all hives regardless of mite count, in August before they start raising the winter bees, and in December when there is the least amount of brood. That was what I intended to do last year but my summer-fall OAV failure changed everything. This year I’ll use formic acid (MAQS) in summer and OAV in winter (hopefully 3 vaps or less). I will also do mite count throughout the season and consider extra treatment if they become too high before August or December. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
2016 summer - 2016/2017 winter OAV details (updated 1/17/17)

Hives#1 and #2 were 8-frame double deeps and also had a medium honey super until 10/23(#1) and 9/24(#2). Honey supers were temporarily removed during vaporization. Hive#3 was a 5-frame nuc (deep+medium). Hive#2/#3 had been treated with a half dose MAQS (formic acid) from 7/3 to 7/9, before splitting/re-queening on 7/9 (no brood break). Queen#1 came with a 2015 spring package from California, Queen#2 was bought from a local apiary in summer 2016, both of them are Carniolan. Queen#3 was #1’s daughter, born spring 2016. OAVs were performed in early mornings. 1/2 tsp (Hives#1 and #2) or 1/3 tsp (#3) of OA (Savogran 10501 Wood Bleach) were vaporized using Mannlake vaporizer. Hives were closed for 10 minutes (the vaporizer was disconnected at 3.5 min. Sublimation of OA was completed by ~5 min).

Round#1: 8/11-8/31, every 4 days, 6 vaps through the screen bottom with the solid bottom below*. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.
Hive#1 22, 70, 97, 94, 94, 69
Hive#2 9, 9, 46, 57, 40, 34
Hive#3 0, 3, 2, 15, 11, 8

Natural mite drop (48hrs) between Round#1 and Round#2 (9/15, 9/22, 9/29)**
Hive#1 17, 36, 72
Hive#2 11, 17, 26
Hive#3 3, 5, 16 

Round#2A: 9/29-10/31, every 4 days. For Hives#1 and #2, 6 vaps from the top in the shim then 3 vaps from the bottom NOT through the screen. For Hive#3, 9 vaps from the top in the shim. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.
Hive#1 206, 449, 367, 175, 146, 213, 337, 535, 375
Hive#2 73, 69, 87, 120, 105, 272, 273, 349, 352 
Hive#3 74, 98, 71, 28, 37, 28, 49, 107, 88

Round#2B: 11/3-11/21, every 3 days. 7 vaps from the bottom NOT through the screen for Hives #1 and #2, from the top in the shim for Hive#3. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.
Hive#1 494, 400, 333, 262, 164, 218, 280
Hive#2 296, 341, 391, 338, 473, 506, 203
Hive#3 104, 105, 206, 99, 56, 69, 267

Round#2C: 11/23-12/7, every other day.*** 8 vaps by the same method as Round#2B. Mite drop 48 hrs after each vap.
Hive#1 322, 187, 129, 41, 25, 16, 10, 12
Hive#2 253, 232, 202, 132, 140, 51, 16, 9
Hive#3 238, 110, 75, 104, 49, 14, 9, 6

Natural mite drop (48hrs) between Round#2 and #3 (12/16, 12/23, 1/6, 1/13)
Hive#1 0, 1, 0, 0
Hive#2 0, 0, 0, 0 
Hive#3 2, 0, 0, 0 

Round#3: One vaporization on 1/14, by the same method as Round#2B and #2C. Mite drop 48 hrs after vap.
Hive#1 1 
Hive#2 0 
Hive#3 0 

*OAVing through the screen bottom was not a good idea (see post #140).
**I should have started another treatment such as apivar, rather than letting surviving mites double every week.
***I do not know whether the every other day schedule worked or the bees had simply stopped brooding.


----------



## Gumpy

Good for you on your hives surviving. 

We're supposed to have temps in the mid 40s in a couple days, for about 3 days in a row. I'm going to do a couple treatments on the remaining hives, I think. The on that died had no brood, so I think this is probably a good time to do it. I'll do one, and check the counts on the board, and will probably do a second one three days later. 

I need to learn more about MAQS and formic acid (or are they the same thing?). I have some Apivar, and may use that in the spring, if necessary, or possibly use it in August. Hoping to get some honey this year off the remaining hive, so will have to wait for that. Hoping I can use the remaining nuc to make more nucs throughout the summer and still get up to the 10 colonies I was planning by next winter. They may all be in nucs, though, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

Gumpy said:


> They were clustered with their heads in the cells, but there was honey and syrup all around them.


Isolation starvation?
or
Is it possible that with the numerous OAV treatments you have made it acidified too much honey and the bees stopped consuming it? I know it's a long shot.

You are more prepared for the new challenges. The best of luck for the surviving hives.


----------



## Gumpy

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Isolation starvation?
> or
> Is it possible that with the numerous OAV treatments you have made it acidified too much honey and the bees stopped consuming it?



I really don't think so. They ate what was where they were clustered, and the other two colonies were hit just as hard with OAV and they seem to be doing fine. The second hive is up in the top box which is all syrup, just as it was in the dead hive. The dead hive didn't go up into the upper box, and much of what they had in the middle one was honey, not syrup, which was capped prior to OAV treatments. 

I'm not discounting the isolation starvation idea, but don't really have a way to prove or disprove it.


----------



## Kuro

Gumpy said:


> I need to learn more about MAQS and formic acid (or are they the same thing?). I have some Apivar, and may use that in the spring, if necessary, or possibly use it in August.


Yes, the active ingredient of MAQS is formic acid (FA). MAQS is formulated to release FA vapor over several days, versus the “FA flash treatment” where you apply appropriate volume and concentration of FA solution on a shop towel, a meat pad and so on. The latter is cheaper but riskier IMO until you optimize it. Unlike OA, FA can penetrate capped brood and kill mites inside. Unlike OA and Apivar, you can use it with honey supers on. The major drawback is that it kills quite a few brood and sometimes the queen, especially when it is too hot and/or ventilation is compromized (you really need to take the instruction manual seriously when using MAQS). In my first year (2015), I was so afraid of this adverse effect that I postponed MAQS treatment until mid fall (very bad idea! the treatment wiped out varroa but I saw lots of K-winged bees that year which I never found last year). This year, I’m determined to do it in August. If it is too hot, maybe half doses 2 weeks apart. Or, I might try Apivar instead of MAQS.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Gumpy said:


> I'm kind of leaning toward freezing as the cause


Bees do not freeze to death. Bees can easily manage temps below -40 C if they are heathy, have access to food, good ventilation and a queen. There must be other causes. 

I kind of think the same a s Eduardo, that they got too much OAV and they were weak because of huge mite load.


----------



## 1102009

Gumpy said:


> I cleaned out the hive. There were thousands of dead bees! Three quart jars full. I can't tell if they froze or starved. They were clustered with their heads in the cells, but there was honey and syrup all around them. They were in the front corner, near the top of the middle box. The top box had 7+ frames of syrup, some capped, some open. They didn't move up. They were alive on Jan 1, but they didn't move from their position. We had temps in the mid teens below zero in the last couple weeks.<
> 
> Did they had brood left?


----------



## Gumpy

SiWolKe said:


> Gumpy said:
> 
> 
> 
> I cleaned out the hive. There were thousands of dead bees! Three quart jars full. I can't tell if they froze or starved. They were clustered with their heads in the cells, but there was honey and syrup all around them. They were in the front corner, near the top of the middle box. The top box had 7+ frames of syrup, some capped, some open. They didn't move up. They were alive on Jan 1, but they didn't move from their position. We had temps in the mid teens below zero in the last couple weeks.<
> 
> Did they had brood left?
> 
> 
> 
> I saw only a very few uncapped cells left in the brood nest. They had two queens who had been laying very well into November.
Click to expand...


----------



## 1102009

Gumpy said:


> I saw only a very few uncapped cells left in the brood nest. They had two queens who had been laying very well into November.


They do not leave brood. They cluster on brood and starve. There could be small clusters on different frames and the clusters can be so small they freeze in a cold spell.
That´s a problem if they start breeding and the cluster(s) is (are) not strong enough.

But you said you saw only one cluster and those must have sitting on brood if they starved. Maybe condensation did it if they were in a corner. Were those on the floor black and moldy?


----------



## Gumpy

SiWolKe said:


> They do not leave brood. They cluster on brood and starve. There could be small clusters on different frames and the clusters can be so small they freeze in a cold spell.
> That´s a problem if they start breeding and the cluster(s) is (are) not strong enough.
> 
> But you said you saw only one cluster and those must have sitting on brood if they starved. Maybe condensation did it if they were in a corner. Were those on the floor black and moldy?


No. They were all fresh, like they just died. They died within the last two weeks, and temps were well below freezing, so probably no chance for mold to form yet. 

I'm going to go look and see just how much brood was in the frames. The bees were on 4 or 5 frames, in what looked like a tight ball. The bees that were still on the frames were about 5 inches diameter. Of course many that were in between the frames fell to the floor when I removed the frames. 

Wish I had taken photos. I'm not a smart phone type of guy, and was too upset to think to go get the camera. Maybe I can take some of the nuc when I clean it out.


----------



## 1102009

Gumpy said:


> I'm going to go look and see just how much brood was in the frames. The bees were on 4 or 5 frames, in what looked like a tight ball. The bees that were still on the frames were about 5 inches diameter. Of course many that were in between the frames fell to the floor when I removed the frames.
> 
> Wish I had taken photos. I'm not a smart phone type of guy, and was too upset to think to go get the camera. Maybe I can take some of the nuc when I clean it out.


It´s good to know what to rule out if possible, so you are able to avoid false interpretation.
Look what is in the cells, how much brood there was and if the bee amount you found would be able to cover the brood, look if there is honey between the brood cells, so they did not starve.

With my first deadout 2014 I was upset too, could not sleep the whole night. Was a varroa kill. You see if they have the DWV. Today I mess around with the deadout bees and old comb hoping to find out because it´s most important.
Deadouts- they happen. Go on and enjoy the others.


----------



## 1102009

Gumpy said:


> I need to learn more about MAQS and formic acid (or are they the same thing?). I have some Apivar, and may use that in the spring, if necessary, or possibly use it in August. Hoping to get some honey this year off the remaining hive, so will have to wait for that. Hoping I can use the remaining nuc to make more nucs throughout the summer and still get up to the 10 colonies I was planning by next winter. They may all be in nucs, though, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.


You must have a better treatment management. As you realize yourself, get informed. Formic acid is used here in a dispenser or liquid on sponge and it´s very dangerous. Separate the queen with one comb and workers to do formic acids.
But you can do it once and kill the mites in brood. Or twice if necessary.
Oxalic acids are used here when the hive is broodless, vaporized. Once! 

Listen to Bernhard Heuvel! He has much experience.


----------



## Gumpy

Here's some photos of the frames. First photo is the pile of bees in the plastic bin I collected them in. Next photos will be front and back side of each frame going into the hive from where the bees were located. You can see all the bees remaining with their heads in the cells. Note there are only a very few capped brood scattered around. Nothing where the cluster was. Plenty of food. 

First set...


----------



## Gumpy

Second set...


----------



## Gumpy

Third set...


----------



## Gumpy

Last one. Only one side. This is syrup. The rest of the frames in this box are syrup, as are the frames in the box above.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

Sorry to hear. 

How thick is the insulation under the lid? 

At first glance I'd say they starved to death. I am asking about the insulation because a thick insulated roof makes it easier for the bees to reach the outer frames even in cold weather, transferring food to the center of the winter cluster.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

It seems to me a case of isolation starvation.

In the frames with honey the color is blue-greenish. Is it a distortion of the photo or is it the actual color? If it's real I've never seen honey of this color in my hives.


----------



## clyderoad

Seems to be plenty of bees for a cluster to move to feed- if they were healthy.
If they were healthy maybe the green syrup got them? what was put in the syrup?


----------



## Gumpy

There is 1 1/2 inches of pink foam board insulation under the roof. Below that is a 4 1/2" Quilt box filled with wood shavings. The hive was wrapped with 1" foam board insulation. It sticks out on the ends 3/4" due to the cleat handles on the ends of some of my boxes. 

The green syrup is 2-1 sugar syrup with green food coloring. I did that so I could tell where they are storing it, and distinguish between honey and syrup.


----------



## 1102009

I´m with Bernhard and Eduardo.
Sometimes bees not well adapted to their climate can starve within inches of honey even without covering brood. They don't have the ability to move in extreme temperatures.
Could that be the case?
It´s probably not only the race but the change of location too.


----------



## Gumpy

SiWolKe said:


> I´m with Bernhard and Eduardo.
> Sometimes bees not well adapted to their climate can starve within inches of honey even without covering brood. They don't have the ability to move in extreme temperatures.
> Could that be the case?
> It´s probably not only the race but the change of location too.


I think it's possible. I checked them on the first of Jan and they were in the same position, so they didn't move. There was plenty to eat. I have a feeling being in the corner next to the walls of the hive added to the cold. 

This hive was one of my original two, with a queen from Louisiana last spring. Somewhere along the way, they acquired another queen which I didn't know about. I never found queen cells in this colony. Maybe she came from one of the nucs. Maybe she was in there all along. I saw them both for the first time in the fall. I found both dead queens in the mess of bees. All my other hives are daughters or granddaughters of this queen.


----------



## 1102009

I had a hive with two queens too, now a deadout. 
I was very surprised when I found her, when checking I saw two hatched queen cells which were buried deep in comb. Sometimes the bees chew them down.

I´m not sure why they died, maybe the old queen was not prolific any more and the young not mated.
Not many bees left. Not much of varroa seen.

Your bees will adapt to your location after some time. Those which do not should not survive in my opinion.

I´ve got a queen from the canary islands, if she does not survive this long and hard winter I know why. She is resistant stock.
If her descendants will not survive the climate i know they need more years than 2 to adapt.

One of the descendants was not mite resistant and was a varroa crash deadout.

I recall I read somewhere to never buy a queen which is bred south of you.


----------



## Gumpy

SiWolKe said:


> I had a hive with two queens too, now a deadout.
> I was very surprised when I found her, when checking I saw two hatched queen cells which were buried deep in comb. Sometimes the bees chew them down.


The nuc that died had two queens, also. it's possible one was not mated. I found them in the late fall. The two in the nuc were both produced in that nuc and at least one started laying quite well in early Oct. They never took much syrup, though. I had a sugar board on top, but they never came up to it.



> I recall I read somewhere to never buy a queen which is bred south of you.


[/quote]

If you want packages or nucs in the spring in MN, you don't have much choice. Very few people around here sell local overwintered nucs and packages. Thinking about changing that, if I can learn how to be successful getting them through winter. 


Well, I appreciate all the information and suggestions. I'm going to chalk this up to isolation starvation due to extreme cold, compounded by weakness cause by high mite load with treatments too late in the season to save them. Operator error. 

I'll post photos of the nuc frames as I remove and clean that. Supposed to be in the mid 40s today, so may do that this afternoon. Planning on doing an OAV on the two remaining colonies, also.


----------



## 1102009

Gumpy said:


> Thinking about changing that, if I can learn how to be successful getting them through winter.
> I'll post photos of the nuc frames as I remove and clean that.


:thumbsup:


----------



## jean-marc

Gumpy: 

The pictures on post 164 show a very small cluster. They had no chance.
Third picture on post 163 shows defecation, likely Nosema ceranae. High varroa loads with Nosema is super deadly.
It was a case of too little too late.

Jean-Marc


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

SiWolKe said:


> I recall I read somewhere to never buy a queen which is bred south of you.



All of my purchased queens have been raised over 1,000 miles south of me, I have found that this has had NO effect on their survival. Be careful what you believe, there is no 'truth filter' on the Internet.

RE: Two queens, both dead.

Is it not out of the realm of possibility that they killed each other, and -that- is the reason for the collapse?


----------



## Gumpy

BadBeeKeeper said:


> RE: Two queens, both dead.
> 
> Is it not out of the realm of possibility that they killed each other, and -that- is the reason for the collapse?


No. If that were the case, they would have done so months ago when I first saw them both in each of the colonies, and I would not have found the dead bodies. They were working in harmony back in October. 

Even though this is my first year, I've learned that the old lore of a single queen in a colony is not necessarily the case. It is more common than people, including "experts", lead you to believe. As you said, there is no "truth filter" on the internet, be careful what you believe. Keep an open mind. I have read and watched so much information since I began this journey just over a year ago, much of it conflicting, even in the books of the "experts". I'm slowly developing my own truth filter, augmented with experience, both good and bad, and the input of all the various people on this board.


----------



## 1102009

BadBeeKeeper said:


> All of my purchased queens have been raised over 1,000 miles south of me, I have found that this has had NO effect on their survival. Be careful what you believe, there is no 'truth filter' on the Internet.


Never said it was the truth. So if someone tells me otherwise that´s ok. What I will believe is my choice.
How do I know you speak the truth  ? Could be your managements that keep them alive.

I´m with Gumpy.


> Keep an open mind. I have read and watched so much information since I began this journey just over a year ago, much of it conflicting, even in the books of the "experts". I'm slowly developing my own truth filter, augmented with experience, both good and bad, and the input of all the various people on this board.


----------



## Mike Gillmore

Gumpy said:


> They were working in harmony back in October.


That was back in October. Maybe they changed their minds as winter approached and neither survived the duel. Remember, keep an open mind.


----------



## Forgiven

I'm under the impression that if queens exist in a hive together, they won't kill each other, but the workers are likely to pick one over winter to keep, and discard the other. With that logic both dying seems unlikely.

...then again, I have never tested that myself (not really sure how one would do such a test and how anyone reached that conclusion anyways....) so who knows.


----------



## Gumpy

Mike Gillmore said:


> That was back in October. Maybe they changed their minds as winter approached and neither survived the duel. Remember, keep an open mind.


yes, an open mind. Not a fantasticly speculative mind! :lookout:

They died with the hive. There were too many bees in there for the colony to have died out due to dwindlization (yeah, that's a word, look it up!) because the two queens died. They were found in the pile of dead bees and were just as fresh as the other bees. If the queens die, the rest of the colony doesn't just up and croak immediately.


----------



## Gypsi

they have to be picking them up from somewhere. How many apiaries in flight distance from yours? (pulling my sticky to count mites in a few minutes, will post results then) Also, how many boxes on this hive? The one I treated has a deep and 2 mediums, I used 2 grams Savogran (sp) wood bleach, which is 71% Oxalic acid


----------



## Mike Gillmore

Forgiven said:


> , but the workers are likely to pick one over winter to keep, and discard the other. With that logic both dying seems unlikely.


But, what if ... 

The 2 queens get together. Simultaneously, the queen which the colony has decided to keep is killed by the queen who is about to be discarded by the colony. No queens left. 

Like you said, who knows. There are too many possibilities to consider, some more likely than others. But you can't rule anything completely out.


----------



## Mike Gillmore

Gumpy said:


> If the queens die, the rest of the colony doesn't just up and croak immediately.


If the queen dies going into winter in a cold climate, what happens to the cluster and how long will the bees last?


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Gypsi said:


> I used 2 grams Savogran (sp) wood bleach, which is 71% Oxalic acid


Per the manufacturer's MSDS sheet, Savogran Wood Bleach is 95-100% oxalic acid.
http://www.savogran.com/pdfs/Wood_Bleach_MS.pdf


----------



## Gypsi

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Per the manufacturer's MSDS sheet, Savogran Wood Bleach is 95-100% oxalic acid.
> http://www.savogran.com/pdfs/Wood_Bleach_MS.pdf


Not on container, guess I didn't underdose them. Got 71% from a Randy Oliver quote on another forum, used it to calculate. I treat above the screen with the sticky board securely in and gaps taped. They are alive


----------



## snl

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Per the manufacturer's MSDS sheet, Savogran Wood Bleach is 95-100% oxalic acid.
> http://www.savogran.com/pdfs/Wood_Bleach_MS.pdf


True, however an email I received from the company president states that in routinely tests out at 99.7%


----------



## Gypsi

I dosed them good then. I want to guess I might have had a couple of hundred varroa mites on my sticky board, from the December 15 treatment, and Jan 19th treatment. (had surgery Dec 16th and couldn't do anything in between, not remove sticky or remove tape, just let it sit til I could get back to it.) Nailed 8 SHB too. most of what is on the board is chewed wax.


----------

