# Mites finally got me



## johnbeejohn

bummmmmmeeeerrrrrrrrr


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## clyderoad

rwurster said:


> Went out to check both my yards today as we've had a bit of exceptionally nice weather and discovered I have lost 23 out of 30 hives...... Last year was the best year I've ever had as far as honey harvest and booming strong hives all season even going into winter. It was the first year I haven't done a mite count in the fall also. I usually don't treat and when I have treated it's with OAV only. I've never noticed any diseases other than mites in my apiary and if the bees were suffering from something I would treat to rectify the situation, but I've been lucky. The end of my 5th season is my worst season. One thing that was interesting was the size of every dead cluster was approximately the same size, about the size of a nice grapefruit. I'll be treating them in the fall with an OAV regiment from now on. I just closed up the entrances of the dead hives after cleaning them out so I could store the honey in the field until early - mid March.


sorry to hear this. goes to show if you stumble just a bit with mites, nearly the whole thing blows up on you. 
there is no room for error anymore.
seems the best booming honey makers fall to mites as fast or faster than other mediocre colonies. have had it happen to me.
what can you do but pick up the pieces and re populate those hives, and then set some new goals for the upcoming season. the new fall treatment plan you mentioned sounds like a solid one. maybe a spring treatment in those survivors too if show a need?
hang in there.


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## DPBsbees

My best honey producer this year had the highest mite drop and population during the late fall OAV. With the warm winter, all hives will get a very early spring or late winter based on temps OAV. Mites should be brutal this year in my area. I'm not going to let them get a foot hold in spring. Start with as few as possible and monitor is the plan for 2016.


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## Paulemar

That's heartbreaking. I'd be devastated with those losses. I am paranoid about varroa mites & know that they will kill my hives if I screw up. I can easily do that too! I only have 7 hives but treated in July, August, & September with single pad MAQS 4-6 weeks apart. In spite of that, when I treated with OAV a couple of days before Thanksgiving, my dead mite counts after 48 hrs. surprised me. I treated again 10 days later & 48 hr. dead mite counts were much, much better. I checked today & all 7 were alive & well----so far. Only 2 months more to go before I can breathe a sigh of relief & start worrying about swarming. All hives have sugar bricks on them.


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## psfred

Always be wary of mites, and assume you have a problem. What happened to you is a classic case of parasitic mite syndrome -- your booming hives with lots of brood raise a nice crop of mites along with that brood, and when the hive population fell off in the late summer the mites infested the majority of the winter bees, and therefore they died off rapidly as soon as it got cold. 

This year I treated every hive in August (including the hygenic ones) with formic acid just as soon as the temps dropped into the treatment range. Got a decent drop, less than I expected, but we had a pollen and nectar dearth last year and only one out of ten hives had much brood, and that was mostly drones. The queens started laying a week or two after the treatment and all the hives did quite well in the fall, had to feed all of them but two, one overwintered and the other a fairly aggressive swarm, but the rest were all first year hives.

Had all six at my house doing orientation/cleansing flights at some time or other today, nice big fat healthy looking bees, so I don't think I have mite problems this spring. Depending on mite drop, I may treat this spring, otherwise if all looks OK they will get a formic acid treatment in August again.

Mites are sneaky -- I'd do counts or look closely for signs of viral diseases rather than assume a booming hive has a low mite count, as quite the opposite can be true. Crawling bees, distorted wings, or bees with "k-wing" indicate a strong need to treat for mites well before winter bees are being raised, it won't help you a bit to wait until winter, you will have a hive full of weak bees that will die of as soon as it gets cold.

Peter


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## Fusion_power

Did you check the living colonies? Were any of them healthy indicating resistance genetics?


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## Muzkrat

I gave mine an OAV treatment today. Saw some weak looking bees crawling around on th eground in front of the hive and after inspection saw they had mites. Almost made me sick. I treated in the fall and thought I was good to go but not so. It is going to be in the upper 50s low 60s this week so I plan to hit them again before it cools off. Hope I caught it in time.


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## SRatcliff

Sorry to hear. Hopefully the rest will come through and you can build back up quickly. Do you raise your own queens?


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## Acebird

Fusion_power said:


> Did you check the living colonies? Were any of them healthy indicating resistance genetics?


That was my thought. He made a killing on the hives that couldn't survive so why shed the tears? Work with the 7 that are left. Look on the good side, 23 hives took out a lot of mites. I assume you weren't trying to overwinter grapefruit size colonies.


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## exmar

I can't imagine how you feel!!

63 degrees and sunny today, with no wind, my two hives were very active. I'm taking down some sugar tomorrow JIC. I've been TF for 8 years and today, looked very closely around and at the bees flying around and everyone seemed happy and healthy. Reading this post and the comments just made me decide to treat with OA tomorrow. How long can blind or beginners luck last?


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## Arnie

That stinks. Sorry to hear it. Back when the mites first hit I lost 20 out of 25.....I know how that feels; a sick feeling in your stomach.

Hopefully you can make some splits with the survivors and build back up.


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## rwurster

Fusion_power said:


> Did you check the living colonies? Were any of them healthy indicating resistance genetics?


Honestly Fusion I was going to post this in the TF section but thought it was better posting it in the general forum. I was mostly TF and all my bees were basically local survivor stock. I've hoped for the TF miracle to happen and bred from my best stock but my thoughts that after 5 years I had some good stock and I didn't really have to worry came back and bit me in a harsh way. I'm upset at myself mostly for letting this happen, however, I'm sitting on 1500+ # of honey, I can scrape all my frames (450+ lol) cull any wonky comb, etc. etc. I've already made several calls to people I've done cutouts for in the past and am going to be a swarm trap setting lunatic around town, already planning on when to do splits, raise queens, etc. What to do with all the honey until spring is whats honestly, in my opinion, my biggest problem. Crazy thing is I have the resources to stock 20 - 10 frame double deep hives, just need bees  I'll get them, but I could kick myself. I saw maybe 1 or 2 K wing crawlers in each yard and never any in the hives, although I wasn't really looking for it. 

It's one of those things people say, let this be a lesson. I hope you all don't have to go through this ever, but honestly I'm not that bad off other than not having any honey to sell next year.

Cheers


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## squarepeg

sorry to hear about your losses rwurster. what strain of bee are you working with, and did you harvest all of the honey and feed back up to winter weight?


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## Fusion_power

Reading between the lines a bit, but it sounds like you have enough honey to get 20+ good size colonies off the ground. Is there any chance you could get some good queens and split your remaining bees? Or alternatively, raise some queens and do some splits? Between splits and swarms, you should be able to get back up to 30 colonies this summer sometime.


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## psfred

Bees can lose resistance to mites as the queens get replaced and mate with whatever drones are available, so even if you think you are successfully treatment free I would suggest doing mite counts. That way if you do suddenly get higher mite loads than your bees can handle you can do something before they crash on you.

I don't consider formic or oxalic acids to be harmful chemicals in the hive. Obviously they are nasty, but neither accumulates and neither will contaminate honey or wax. I would prefer not to treat at all, but I'm not going to make a religion out of it and lose most of my hives as a result.

Peter


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## thehackleguy

Acebird said:


> That was my thought. He made a killing on the hives that couldn't survive so why shed the tears? Work with the 7 that are left. Look on the good side, 23 hives took out a lot of mites. I assume you weren't trying to overwinter grapefruit size colonies.


Why do you even post? Do you remember Thumpers mother's saying? "If you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all." I think that is appropriate in this instance.


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## Oldtimer

rwurster said:


> I've already made several calls to people I've done cutouts for in the past and am going to be a swarm trap setting lunatic around town, already planning on when to do splits, raise queens, etc.


Sounds like you are getting straight back up, great positive attitude. All the best!


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## NewbeeInNH

rwurster - as has been said, one bright side is your remaining 7 hives might have some good resistant genetics. Maybe you could build on those. On another note, did you pop any under the microscope and check for nosema? Just curious whether that could have been a factor as well.


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## squarepeg

looks like you posted the answers to my questions as i was typing them rwurster. did you have your hives in more than one yard, and if so was there a difference in losses between yards? are there other apiaries nearby? best of luck to you with building back up!


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## beemandan

Best of luck with the rebuild.


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## Acebird

psfred said:


> Bees can lose resistance to mites as the queens get replaced and mate with whatever drones are available,
> Peter


I agree Peter. But the more hives you have that are resistant the more likely the drone population would be resistant. The OP is saying he didn't see a lot of DWV. I think he would be making a mistake to assume all the hives crashed from mites. Not saying it couldn't happen but there could have been other stresses involved and the mites were the straw that broke the camel's back.



> What to do with all the honey until spring is whats honestly, in my opinion, my biggest problem.


If you are absolutely certain there is no other disease involved in this carnage you should use it to rebuild the apiary. I would caution just using swarms and cutouts because these are unknowns brought into the apiary. If you have totally given up on TF what would it matter to buy queen stock that is developed for producing honey?


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## camero7

> But the more hives you have that are resistant the more likely the drone population would be resistant.


Not necessarily true. New queens go to drone congregation areas far from the hives to avoid inbreeding. So your newly mated queens are probably bringing in non-resistant genes.


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## NewbeeInNH

Forgive me for beating this drum lately, but now I'm thinking that when 23 out of 30 hives go kaput, it's time to send some samples of those bees in for testing. Even mite treatment free folks don't have that % of deadouts. I'm with acebird here, there could be something else going on. It could be just mites, but it might not, and those numbers are hefty, and painful.


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## Acebird

camero7 said:


> So your newly mated queens are probably bringing in non-resistant genes.


If this is the case there would never be any resistance built up in the first place. How do queen breeder come up with hygenic bees? Insemination? Where do they get the drones? Inbreeding? I can't help thinking that Colorado is a tough place to raise bees and I don't think it is because Colorado has the highest concentration of mites.


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## camero7

> Forgive me for beating this drum lately, but now I'm thinking that when 23 out of 30 hives go kaput, it's time to send some samples of those bees in for testing. Even mite treatment free folks don't have that % of deadouts.


Lots of people have that percentage of deadouts in some years. I've experienced 80% losses and know others that have had similar losses. Almost every time it was mites as the main culprit. Can't understand why some beekeepers won't face the facts. I've read the OP's posts for a while. He's a pretty knowledgeable beekeeper. But some won't accept his facts.



> I can't help thinking that Colorado is a tough place to raise bees


I was raised 50 miles from Pueblo. My father had great bees. Pretty good place to raise bees with all the alfalfa back in those days. Every place is tough if your bees can't handle the mites and you don't treat.


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## NewbeeInNH

But cam, don't you think that % of deadouts would warrant testing just to make sure? If it's mites then you can feel confident about honing in on further mite treatment. But just to assess based on the appearance of mite residue, to me, would not be conclusive enough. 

Varroa started somewhere, and other pathogens can start somewhere too. If those who are experiencing large deadouts send them to be tested, we could potentially get a heads up on any new issues that might be arriving. I don't feel comfortable with: Large deadout, must be mites.


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## camero7

Sure, send them in. But Beltsville doesn't test for virus issues and that's almost certainly what killed these hives. Vectored by varroa. And virus testing costs some $$$ that I wouldn't spend if I saw serious varroa residue in my dead outs.


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## Mike Gillmore

rwurster, 

Sorry to hear about your losses. It can be heartbreaking, but sure sounds like you have the right attitude moving forward. Hope everything goes your way this year and you get your hive count right back up where it was.

If mites were the culprit, I'm a little skeptical in "assuming" that the remaining hives have some type of mite resistant traits. It could be that they just had less brood during the season resulting in less mites, or maybe the survivors had a more robust brood break over the summer. Because they "survived" doesn't automatically mean you have better queens in those colonies. If they come through winter alive but weak, what have you gained if they do not produce much honey for you this year? In a couple months you will have a clearer picture of what you really have left. Hopefully it's good news.

Was burned myself the one year I tried to go TF. Lost 10 of 12 hives, and the survivors weren't worth a flip. Not as huge of a loss as you had, but I can appreciate the shock you have to work your way through moving forward. I guess I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to TF management. Since that time I've been on a regular schedule with OAV that seems to be working great. I've even stopped doing shakes to check for mites, it's a waste of time for me ... I know they will be there. The evidence is always on the sticky boards after the treatments. 

I'm not at all trying to berate the TF folks. I'm glad some are having success and I hope it continues for them. I just think that some "areas" are not able to support TF beekeeping for various reasons. We all need to keep our bees in accordance with our personal philosophies, and be comfortable with the losses we sustain what ever we choose.


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## NewbeeInNH

camero7 said:


> Sure, send them in. But Beltsville doesn't test for virus issues and that's almost certainly what killed these hives. Vectored by varroa. And virus testing costs some $$$ that I wouldn't spend if I saw serious varroa residue in my dead outs.


Really? Well, I can certainly understand if it costs. I thought they tested (for free) for nosema, etc. You'd think that would be important.


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## Acebird

camero7 said:


> And virus testing costs some $$$ that I wouldn't spend if I saw serious varroa residue in my dead outs.


Unfortunately what was needed is monitoring prior to putting the hives to bed for the winter. How did 23 hives go from not having a mite problem in the fall to having a mite problem half way through winter? There should be no surprises (unless you are like me) about mite loses in the winter. I do an external monitoring for mites. I am not going to do anything about it but I have my suspicions on what hives are not going to make it. The surprise is when they do not when they don't.


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## beemandan

Acebird said:


> How did 23 hives go from not having a mite problem in the fall to having a mite problem half way through winter?


The devil is in the details Ace. 



rwurster said:


> It was the first year I haven't done a mite count in the fall also.


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## squarepeg

rwurster said:


> the commercial near me...





rwurster said:


> Most hives have 80# of red syrup stuffed into their supers.


i'm not sure how much or how little these factors weigh into your experience. 

having a sizable commercial presence nearby may be having a deleterious influence on the drone contribution there. and there is the 'mite bomb' consideration that has been disussed regarding swarms issuing from nonresistant colonies that end up collapsing and spreading mites to a local population

as far as the feeding goes i believe it's really unknown to what degree the bees' derive natural resistance against viruses ect. on a honey diet vs. syrup. it seems that more often than not those having success off treatments tend to avoid feeding syrup and it might be a factor.

having said all that, i realize that it is within the realm of possibility that a more virulent strain of mites or some novel virus is subject to show up in my yards at any time, and i may be posting a similar thread at some point.

what gives me hope is that there are those like fusion power who started his resistant stock using a swarm that was caught a few miles from here, and the supplier from whom i purchased my bees who has two colonies collected from trees that will have 20 winters under their belt should they make through this one.

either way i think there is great merit in putting in the time and effort as well as taking some risk in pursuing the goal of advancing mite resistance through selection (and deselection) with survivor bees, and again i wish you the best of luck going forward.


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## Acebird

beemandan said:


> The devil is in the details Ace.


As blind as I am I can see evidence of mite destruction. There is usually a heavy mite fall with dwindling population, brood frames with emerging brood with their tongue sticking out, holes in the top of sealed brood, and the mite frass and the typical spotty brood which without the other evidence I would ignore. I don't see the need to be a scientist and measure mites on all your colonies. There is no way a commercial operator has the time (money) to do this. Thanks to OT he has given us an excellent way to monitor mites without being a scientist or lab rat.


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## squarepeg

an afterthought i had regarding making feed available through what might otherwise be a summer dearth is that simulating a strong nectar flow would likely result in wide open brood rearing (and mite rearing) during a time when a colony might otherwise scale way back if not break completely from brooding. i've wondered how much having a pronounced summer dearth here (and a strain of bees that brood breaks through it) plays a role in my colonies' survival off treatments.


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## The General

squarepeg said:


> as far as the feeding goes i believe it's really unknown to what degree the bees' derive natural resistance against viruses ect. on a honey diet vs. syrup. it seems that more often than not those having success off treatments tend to avoid feeding syrup and it might be a factor.


I believe it is the most important part of trying to be a TF beekeeper. 

Honey is made from the bees in their stomach. Microorganisms and antibodies from the bees are transmitted to other bees by eating the honey. The new young bees are then raised with this protection from the various diseases the adult bees already had to battle and overcome. The same thing happens with humans. Babies feed breast-milk get the antibodies from the mother to help develop their immune system. Babies feed on formula are left to battle these pathogens without the jump start of the Mothers antibodies. 

In almost all species on this planet, the food they eat plays the most important role in their health. Why would it be any different for bees?


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## squarepeg

rwurster said:


> I've fed since spring so they've been drawing since spring and still are through the dearth.
> 
> Like I said this is just my experiment for this year and it has honestly gone pretty well. My worries are overwintering bees with copious amounts of syrup compared to honey. We'll see the true results in the spring if anything is still alive inch: Like I said its my first year of feeding 15 hives heavily all season long. Im going to stop feeding the end of August/beginning of September when the fall flow hits.


looks like rwurster was experimenting and at least anticipated the possibility of the experiment not working out. but this may not explain his additional losses if there were other hives not managed this way.


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## NewbeeInNH

squarepeg said:


> an afterthought i had regarding making feed available through what might otherwise be a summer dearth is that simulating a strong nectar flow would likely result in wide open brood rearing (and mite rearing) during a time when a colony might otherwise scale way back if not break completely from brooding. i've wondered how much having a pronounced summer dearth here (and a strain of bees that brood breaks through it) plays a role in my colonies' survival off treatments.


That's an interesting thought. That dearths might give the colonies a needed breather.


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## Acebird

The General said:


> I believe it is the most important part of trying to be a TF beekeeper.


Everyone has their own definition of what TF is. Mine is you don't feed sugar.


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## squarepeg

i find syrup is helpful for nucs with a new queen brought online after our main flow is over. i give them enough to get a few rounds of brood off and then stop feeding. if they don't put up enough stores on the fall flow to overwinter they get a few frames of honey from their established cousins.


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## rwurster

My hugest problem is the commercial near me. I'm never more than 1/4 mile from 40 - 160 hives of his. I open mate, he always buys southern Italian queens and requeens every spring. I know this because I've helped him on several occasions and we have a good rapport between us. I've asked him where I can go to open breed my queens and he told me Boone, which if you guys were here you'd get the joke. The best place to mate queens for resistance would be in town but I defer to an old Aurora (Denver) beekeeping code when I do business in town and don't run more than 2 hives in any location there. I'm just going to keep open mating in the county and treat with OA in the fall, no biggie. It's just what I'm going to have to do to keep bees where I have them. I did forget I have 2 hives by my backdoor, never been treated, both still alive after 5 years. My opinion is that if the commercial wasn't always so close to me I would have a better chance with the genetics I've been trying to foster. It's a heard earned lesson but I've learned it and I'll NEVER make the same mistake again lol.

I do have to thank the beesource community for the years of posts from knowledgeable people about mite dead outs. I actually had a good idea as to the culprit and i remembered descriptions of what t he evidence of a dead out due to mites would look like and the pics of mite feces etc. at first I was a bit scared it would be a mystery.

edit: cant wait to fill out the beekeeping survey this year


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## Acebird

squarepeg said:


> if they don't put up enough stores on the fall flow to overwinter they get a few frames of honey from their established cousins.


Why couldn't you do that when you made the nuc with the new queen?


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## Fusion_power

RW, is the commercial beekeeper experiencing higher than normal losses? It would be interesting to find out if he treated last fall and if so what he treated with. That would give some perspective to your loss.


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## rwurster

I had 20 of his hives 100 feet away from 1 of my yards with another 80 within a 1/4 mile and 120 of his hives within 1/4 mile of my main yard. I know he treats a ****tail before heading to holding yards in November then to Cali for almonds. When I helped him it was Apisvar or Apistan when we pulled honey, then termycin (sp) mixed with HFCS and something else before heading out in November. I'll talk to him in March, when hes coming back from NM. Last year he took a huge hit from nosema and lost maybe 25% (250 hives) but that was leaving Cali going to a flow in maybe NM. I spoke to his son in July but it was mostly about the clover flow in the western part of the county and how bad swarming was this year. The guy is always interested in my small cell/natural cell endeavors and how to administer OA treatments. I cant wait for the bs hes going to spew at me for this one lol I'm glad you said something, I will ask him about losses.


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## NewbeeInNH

Is 25% loss an exceptionally big one for nosema? I just have this gut feeling that nosema has morphed into more than what we're giving it credit for.

But I promise I will never worry out loud here again (about this issue anyway  ). Just thought it interesting that indeed he had a nosema issue.


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## Acebird

rwurster said:


> I know he treats a ****tail before heading to holding yards in November then to Cali for almonds. When I helped him it was Apisvar or Apistan when we pulled honey, then termycin (sp) mixed with HFCS and something else before heading out in November.


Oh God! With this going on so close to you, you may have been practicing TF but your bees certainly haven't. This is like trying to have an organic farm down wind to an adjacent field of GMO.


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## Harley Craig

squarepeg said:


> an afterthought i had regarding making feed available through what might otherwise be a summer dearth is that simulating a strong nectar flow would likely result in wide open brood rearing (and mite rearing) during a time when a colony might otherwise scale way back if not break completely from brooding. i've wondered how much having a pronounced summer dearth here (and a strain of bees that brood breaks through it) plays a role in my colonies' survival off treatments.


IMO I think it has a lot to do with it, most yrs we have a solid 1.5- 2 month dearth here and the ones that shut down look the best going into winter although they have smaller numbers. That is what scares me this winter is we didn't have much of a dearth last yrs.


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## Oldtimer

Careful what you say Harley wouldn't want any spying eyes and obsessional people to get you kicked of that FB page LOL 

Joking aside though I've experimented with broodless periods (simulating a shut down in a dearth) I used 6 weeks brood free and at the end of it there were around the same mite numbers as at the beginning. However at least they had not increased a decent mite population can increase exponentially in 6 weeks of plenty brood. Other thing with that is my bees perform poorly against mites, but "survivor" type bees probably are able to eliminate a lot of mites if they are all forced to become phoretic through a brood break, exposing them to the bees.

Even commercial beekeepers will from time to time comment they are expecting, or have had, bad mite problems due to climate events that caused extra brood rearing at certain times.


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## Riskybizz

rwurster >>>"I'll talk to him in March, when hes coming back from NM. Last year he took a huge hit from nosema and lost maybe 25% (250 hives) but that was leaving Cali going to a flow in maybe NM"...

Please tell your overmedicated mite infested commercial beekeeper to stay in Colorado. Sounds like he's running a real nasty operation up there. Mover your bees as far away from him as you can. And oh by the way I wouldn't be leaving all that honey on your dead-outs very long because it won't be there for long. Sorry about you loosing that many bees..


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## Arnie

My business partner wanted to go TF because he didn't like bothering the bees with all those strips and chemicals.
2 years in a row we lost 100% of the bees. That took away all the hand-wringing over treat or not treat.

I looked for an alternative to Apivar, Apiguard and MAQS which seem to do a number on queens sometimes and we settled on OAV. Deadly to the mites, the bees get a little pissy when we treat them but the next day they are happy again. A worthwhile trade-off for us. 



Maybe next life I can be a TF beek, but right now, with the bees we have available to us, we are sticking with the OAV. 

Those kind of losses take the wind out of ya for a while. I feel for you.


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## NewbeeInNH

Arnie said:


> My business partner wanted to go TF because he didn't like bothering the bees with all those strips and chemicals.
> 2 years in a row we lost 100% of the bees. That took away all the hand-wringing over treat or not treat.


Wow. What are you survival rates now? I wonder what kind of bees you have. 100% Russians are "varroa resistant". I like that about them. Not varroa-immune of course, just resistant. 

http://www.russianbreeder.org/russian-bees.html


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## Arnie

Newbee,

Winter of 2014/2015, before I found out about OAV, we had 2 hives survive treating with Apiguard and Apivar. The years before that we lost everything.
This year it looks like we will have 100% survive( 7 of 7) if we can get them to March. Now we can increase little by little to get back. We're really small time, the most hives we have had is 25.

Odd that you should mention the Russian bees. Our best hive of the two that survived was Russian. Built up great, stored lots of honey. We raised one queen from that hive and she is as good as her mom. So the plan is to get more from her.


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## NewbeeInNH

100% is impressive! Well done!


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## Arnie

NOT there yet. Don't jinx us.


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## NewbeeInNH

OOPS! Sorry! Totally understand.

I'm 5 1/2 hives alive right now. That 1/2 hive is teetering. Crossing fingers.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney

Riskybizz said:


> And oh by the way I wouldn't be leaving all that honey on your dead-outs very long because it won't be there for long. Sorry about you loosing that many bees.


Isn't that the truth, but there closed up . One season of not monitoring/treating & up in smoke:scratch: In my experience, a grapefruit size cluster in January has little chance of making it to Spring.


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## squarepeg

Harley Craig said:


> IMO I think it has a lot to do with it, most yrs we have a solid 1.5- 2 month dearth here and the ones that shut down look the best going into winter although they have smaller numbers. That is what scares me this winter is we didn't have much of a dearth last yrs.


thanks harley. i had asked earlier in the thread about feeding and proximity to other bee yards. what we finally learned about that was pretty significant. it's easy for us to sit back and armchair quarterback but in the end it's the op that is bearing the pain of those big losses.

jmho, but i think the feeding was as factor as well and taken in combination with all of the factors ended up pushing these colonies past what they could bear. since rwurster has done some treating we don't know if he has colonies that have survived multiple winters off treatments. if so, than i don't think we can blame it all on genetics and proximity to the commercial yard.

as far as responding to the survey, and has been pointed out by myself and others, these significant losses in a 'treatment free' setting don't always tell the whole story, making the information offered by surveys less that conclusive.

i respect rwurster's decision to adapt a monitor and treat approach, especially after having to write off all of that hard work and expense invested last season. however, and given all the factors at play here, i wouldn't necessarily define the moral of the story as 'the mites will finally get you'. not the op did that, but it is a theme that pops up on the forum from time to time.


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## camero7

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> In my experience, a grapefruit size cluster in January has little chance of making it to Spring.


I take several that size through the winter up here in nuc boxes. Most winter just fine.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney

camero7 said:


> I take several that size through the winter up here in nuc boxes. Most winter just fine.


My point is in January in CO, they are not likely to preserve, & obvious these had some other pressures that ailed them to make all of them this size & ultimately got the upper hand.


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## NewbeeInNH

Russians are known to have smaller winter clusters, so maybe it also depends on the type of bee.


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## rwurster

squarepeg said:


> jmho, but i think the feeding was as factor as well and taken in combination with all of the factors ended up pushing these colonies past what they could bear. since rwurster has done some treating we don't know if he has colonies that have survived multiple winters off treatments. if so, than i don't think we can blame it all on genetics and proximity to the commercial yard


This year I used my apiary (my main yard) as a comb builder, I fed them sugar syrup from mid March to late August. They drew out 400 frames of comb (natural cell) for me which I let them rob out in July and then used it in my second yard (production yard) for honey comb. My main yard was all the queenless side of splits and my secondary yard was the queenright side of the splits plus the cut-out bees and swarms I acquired during the year. None of the hives had been treated for 2 years and a few were going into 4 years TF. I struck drones in my production yard in July and then in both yards in late August - early September when I inspected. There weren't many mites in the capped drone brood either time I struck it, it didn't look any more significant than anything I had seen in previous years. When re-adding supers to get frames cleaned post harvest is when I typically do my sugar roll and OAV treatment. My bees are all local survivors.

If the cluster is the size of a grapefruit in mid - late February you're doing good where I am, if your cluster is smaller than a red delicious apple you should probably combine.


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## squarepeg

understood rwurster, i appreciate the reply, and again i hate it for your losses. it sounds like your sitting pretty on drawn comb for the upcoming season.

what's the story with the 7 survivors? are they mostly in your main yard or production yard or a mix?

it will be interesting if it turns out your neighbor's mite treatments weren't effective and he had a lot of crashes last fall. perhaps that is where the big influx came from.

i'm sorry if i came off as being critical, i didn't mean to. i'm just trying to make sense about why the results vary like they do. 

my opinion is that if there are bona fide feral survivors in the area making it through multiple winters then it should be possible to have them survive in a managed setting as well, especially if the operations and conditions in the hive are not manipulated too much beyond what is generally being done in the natural course of events.

fusion power made a good comment on another thread:

"be careful about becoming too certain about anything with bees..."

that one kind of hit home with me. 

thanks for sharing your experience with the forum, and best of luck to you in 2016.


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## NewbeeInNH

rwurster said:


> If the cluster is the size of a grapefruit in mid - late February you're doing good where I am, if your cluster is smaller than a red delicious apple you should probably combine.


What if it's more the size of a kiwi, or maybe a Hass avacado? I'm getting hungry. LOL.

Interesting that you had a dedicated comb building yard. I was planning on making comb building one of my priorities this summer. Never thought about syrup feeding to prompt that, altho it would ruin potential honey and that's my other priority this summer too. As well as making up maybe 6 or 7 new nucs for overwintering (or small hives if they insist). And building the existing hives up. And swarm prevention. Just a few of the main priorities.  (As you get older you realize you don't have all that many more summers to get these things done.)


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## Acebird

rwurster said:


> one of the hives had been treated for 2 years and a few were going into 4 years TF.





> I typically do my sugar roll and OAV treatment.


Can you explain what these two quotes mean?


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## rwurster

squarepeg said:


> what's the story with the 7 survivors? are they mostly in your main yard or production yard or a mix? my opinion is that if there are bona fide feral survivors in the area making it through multiple winters then it should be possible to have them survive in a managed setting as well


It was 11 losses in one yard and 12 in another, an equal split. I agree that there are feral survivors, they live in the city  Where I am is a heavy agriculture area and I have at least 600 managed hives within mating distance of my yards. The DCAs my yards create just cant beat out the other 600 plus hives with southern mated queens in them pumping out drones also. I think the crash was a combination of both the 3 year mite crash and not being able to isolate and control my own genetics.

NewbeeInNH my comb building yard was successful beyond what I ever thought it could produce. I fed 1:1 pretty much all year long to them and didn't harvest from them last year and wont this year. When I broke down the cost of the sugar used all season to number of combs drawn (fully drawn frame of comb) it came out to about the same as it would cost to have put foundation into those frames except I got fully drawn comb lol It was honestly just an experiment that worked out well for me


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## squarepeg

sounds like some pretty nasty mites combined with some pretty marginal genetics, especially if all of your hives were split and had drone brood struck. i think it's as you've stated, probably not the best environment for successful beekeeping off treatments.


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## Oldtimer

Then how come he was successful for several years?


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## squarepeg

Oldtimer said:


> Then how come he was successful for several years?


good question ot. do you have a take on it?


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## NewbeeInNH

rwurster said:


> I fed 1:1 pretty much all year long to them and didn't harvest from them last year and wont this year.


rwurster - When you pumped them with syrup, how did you keep them building comb and not filling comb with syrup and swarming? Just taking out comb as soon as they build it? Do you have to go in there every few days?

I'm thinking about these logistics. Theoretically, you could keep swiping the comb frames and make up a bunch of nucs, if the queen is laying at the same time. What were your queens doing while the workers were busy comb building?

I may think about setting aside one hive as a comb builder.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney

Oldtimer said:


> Then how come he was successful for several years?


Maybe Acebird, has already answered that, plus he stated that he would treat, when/if needed. I have no experience with grapefruit size clusters in January unless it is in a five frame nuc, & I am north of Pueblo. I would have thought typical size there would be larger, since it is overall warmer there compared to here.:scratch:


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## DirtyLittleSecret

Sweet Beesus! Sorry to hear the loss. We lost 3 hives to mites and I was hard on myself for days (two were my "experimental" TF hives and one tried to supersede late season). Learned to remain vigilant on the mites. Doesnt help that a migratory Beek parked 200+ hives just a mile away creating a vector for disease in the neighborhood. They've move on, but I shouldve been more diligent because of it.


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## Oldtimer

Oldtimer said:


> Then how come he was successful for several years?





squarepeg said:


> good question ot. do you have a take on it?


LOL if I had a take on it I wouldn't have to ask. I am completely ignorant re an explanation so wondering what others thought. A real answer would help unravel why TF can work or not work in certain circumstances.

Thing is, whatever chemicals the commercial was using could not have been an issue for Rwuster unless his own bees actually came in contact with the chemicals somehow. The Drone / diluting genes idea has merit in theory, but then how come Rwuster was even been able to originally produce a survivor strain in the midst of this situation?

Just things I wonder about and are we missing something?


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## Acebird

Oldtimer said:


> Thing is, whatever chemicals the commercial was using could not have been an issue for Rwuster unless his own bees actually came in contact with the chemicals somehow.


There is a possibility that the nearby commercial guy was not using the chemicals so extensively in the beginning. Though the years he increased the usage blindly not treating a disease just treating the bees. This will weaken the bees and strengthen the mites and other diseases.
Try taking a daily dose of antibiotics. You will get weaker and the bacteria will get stronger. Your health will surely go down hill. You will become sick and be a carrier for this strengthen bacteria and infect other people around you.


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## SRatcliff

Too many variables. We could speculate til the cows come home, until more details are given, if there are any more details.


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## NewbeeInNH

The story of beekeeping:

I had bees. They died. I got more.

The end.


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## Mike Gillmore

The other book on the shelf.

I had bees. I treated for mites. They lived. I split, and got more.

The end.



I know, I'm obnoxious. Couldn't resist.


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## NewbeeInNH

Yeah, but that one's a fairytale.


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## Mike Gillmore

Yep, and the bees all lived happily ever after.


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## NewbeeInNH

You win!


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## rwurster

Lol I'm going to read the "other" book in Mike's library


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## NewbeeInNH

"How to get rich quick and gain a full head of hair from your backyard hive"


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## jadebees

I too have lost most of my hives from mites in the past. But don't despair, you have seven hives that have successfully survived a serious mite infection. With robbing behavior those infestations are beeyard wide not restrained to a hive. Those girls are a better breeding stock than any of the dead ones. When I split & bred my remaining survivors for queens I got better success, not perfect, but somewhat more resistant bees. So I recommend you try it.


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## lharder

Oldtimer said:


> Then how come he was successful for several years?


A general hand waving ecological explanation for changes of system state use thresholds. Tweak a parameter on either side of some threshold value and the system can show very different behaviour. Non linearity. So diluted genetics, plus possible exposure to some new viral type brought in by the commercial may have been pushed the system to collapse. If one did a GIS analysis of hive collapse, I wonder if some patterns would show in association nearby migratory hives. 

Regardless, this doesn't seem an ideal situation for tf. At the very least I would get my queens mated in town where the genetics have a better chance. That will be my strategy this year. After the queen starts laying put them back in the country. Perhaps the current yard could be used for production and testing hives, but the nearby migratory operation raises the chance of more frequent episodic die off. 

Also I was wondering if an occasional disaster shouldn't be considered to be just part of the process of beekeeping. Before there were treatments, weren't occasional die offs part of the deal with keeping bees? Every so often most bee keepers would have to reset. Now treatment can delay a day of reckoning, but at what long term cost in terms of adaptation?


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## rwurster

Well, lost 1 more but I got all the remaining colonies blasted with OAV. I didn't have my phone or I would have taken some pics of bottom boards before I cleaned them off. Yikes, mites. I think I'll do a treatment every 5 days for a total of 3 treatments, that's what I did in the fall for infested colonies in the past.


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## Harley Craig

Oldtimer said:


> Careful what you say Harley wouldn't want any spying eyes and obsessional people to get you kicked of that FB page



I dont understand what this means?


I have openly admitted to recomending people who cant stomach the losses to look into OAV. Some folks thought I should have been kicked out and it wasnt whom you might think lol. I told them that if people want help to keep their bees alive and feel that treating is the only way ill help, but I will do it outside the group so that I didnt distract from the mission. I dont ever want to make someone feel about their choices on treating the way some folks made me feel about my choices on not treating


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## aunt betty

Heard that if you manage to breed them perfect VHS bees that they are so hygenic that they kill half their brood and never really get a strong colony going so be careful what you wish for. Just sayin'.


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## NewbeeInNH

aunt betty said:


> Heard that if you manage to breed them perfect VHS bees that they are so hygenic that they kill half their brood and never really get a strong colony going so be careful what you wish for. Just sayin'.


That's a good point. Altho I guess that would solve your swarm problems.


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## blamb61

I lost 5/5 early winter last year! Combination of yellow jackets and mites I believe. Ordered 5 packages yesterday. That really stinks.


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## rwurster

I finally got a chance to talk to the commercial near me and told him of my bad luck last winter. He told me that mites were at the highest levels that he's ever seen in his life last year and that he treated for them 5 times between April and October.


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## sakhoney

RWusrer Sad to here about your bees but there is a silver lining. Guys down here buy brood. What they do is open a hive and shake off all the bees from a couple of brood frames. Then have a medium with a queen excluder nailed on the bottom and a top with screen that you can see through. Then they start shaking bees on this excluder - the young nurse bees go through the excluder to the brood below and old bees take flight and go back to the parent hive. This also is a good way to find your queens if you have a hard time locating them. Anyway shake brood frames like this until 2 brood frames are left in the parent - then dump that medium back in original hive - it may have the queen in it - move on to your next hive and replete until all hives are done - then haul those frames of brood a couple of miles away - install in some ready made up singles - put in a couple of those frames of honey you have left over. divide the brood 1 frame capped - 1 frame with eggs and let them raise there own queens from the survivor stock. Best way to stretch your last resources and get the max nucs. IMO. Good luck man as I feel for ya - I'm TF and my first year of mites was knocked down from 100 to 22. Talk about heartbreak - and then I had another problem - what to do with all those supers? Well I rebuilt this way and now I'm running about 300. So I know this works. Good luck brother in the bees


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## lharder

From my initial tests, my strongest overwintered nucs also happen to be very hygienic. Just saying. There is no reason for a general hyper vigilent hygienic behaviour as long as other things are being selected for as well. There will always be the occasional extreme case. 

When people are talking about the mites doing them in, isn't it a possibility that its actually virus/other disease that is doing the bees in, and the mites are opportunistically building in response?

In theory, if mites aren't able to adapt to oxalic and formic acid treatments, there wouldn't be the need for increased treatment. A solid treatment should be enough to keep things under control. 

Now if the bees were being compromised by disease (and the constant import of new disease strains), the effectiveness of mite control on part of the bees would be diminished, and mites would build more quickly than otherwise, accelerating disease expression. A cascading collapse requiring more and more intervention to keep the system going. Beekeepers should be looking at more than the mites and perhaps looking at factors that constantly expose their bees to new diseases coming in, or importing bees and putting them in new disease context. Reducing this at every scaled level should improve mite management as well.


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## NewbeeInNH

The way I heard it is the mites are the gateway to many diseases, as they provide an opening for disease to enter, kind of like puncturing your skin and giving opportunity to infection.


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## lharder

But if your bees are adapted to a local disease environment, the effects of mites may be indifferent beyond the blood meal. Make that disease environment chaotic and all hell breaks loose.


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## NewbeeInNH

But you're not going to get tetanus if you don't scratch the skin. No staph infection without an entranceway. So how can disease get the upper hand if there is no (or limited) method of transmission? 

I agree that nosema c., which is fairly newly recognized here, is maybe underrated. But in isolation, without the mites to help it gain a foothold, is it as big of a threat? 

So which comes first here, the cart or the horse? Or do they arrive together?

(And when is it time to pontificate on the diet of the bees?  Is sugar a healthy alternative ever?)


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## rwurster

Sakhoney are you using metal excluders? I've only ever used the plastic excluders and only when I've done splits i.e. I shake all the bees into the bottom box, distribute resources, put on excluder, put super with brood and resources for split on top, wait overnight for bees to move up then split. I like how you do it. I saw some metal excluders that colobee uses and I knew instantly they were far superior to the plastic ones. My big buildup is going to be happening in a few weeks and I'm always open to new methods especially if its a more TF approach.


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## sakhoney

I use no excluders at all. Wait a minute - I use one on the bottom of a shaker box as described in above thread if I pull brood. The beekeeper I used to work for split the way you are. Shake all bees to bottom after moving all brood around and wait overnight for nurse bees to even up. Next day we roll in with tops & bottoms and split the yard up and haul away the splits. For me I mostly just do in the yard splits. Don't even look for a queen - just split them up and make sure everything has eggs in it. don't care where the old queen ends up.


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## jim lyon

rwurster said:


> I finally got a chance to talk to the commercial near me and told him of my bad luck last winter. He told me that mites were at the highest levels that he's ever seen in his life last year and that he treated for them 5 times between April and October.


5 treatments in a season? Unless we are talking OA vaporization, I would suggest he rethink his varroa management program.


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## rwurster

It seemed excessive to me too Jim but if he said that's what he did I take him at his word. When I've worked with him in the past the mite treatments were administered when he migrated back here from California in March and after we pull honey here which is typically in early October. The guy has always run Italians and just switched queen breeders this year to Carnis. All the hives in my second yard have a high proportion of Italian looking workers and drones now. It's not really relevant but I thought it was kind of cool. Well except that he had 20 hives less than 100 feet away from my yard most of last season, that's where the heavy Italian influence happened. I remember a few late season supercedure cells.


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