# mite counts in tfb



## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

*In fact, not all of them are.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

shewee, i was worried about that. i feel better now, thanks sol.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

If you'd like me to explain the sort of actions one might take, the whys and why nots and whatnots, I can, but I'd rather leave it up to those who actually use those methods for now.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i would like anyone to feel free to chime in as they feel led to do so. i guess it would be more meaningful if folks are reporting real life experiences, but i don't mind the 'well, i was thinking i might try this.....' kind of post as well. at this point, i'm addicted to my laptop anyway, so it don't matter.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

squarepeg said:


> i'm addicted to my laptop anyway


Oh yeah? :lpf:


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## RedDave (Apr 5, 2010)

So, what is a "bond beekeeper"?

Dave


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well, bizzare as it may sound, my hives that have a large (natural) amount of drone comb and drones, have done better mitewise than the hives that have a restricted amount of drones.

Of course that goes against everything we've ever been taught, we all know it's a fact that drones are mite factories, right!

It could be that i've only got a few TF hives and it was just chance. But anyhow I'm going to keep observing this to see if it starts looking like there's a correlation.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

RedDave said:


> So, what is a "bond beekeeper"?
> 
> Dave


James Bond as in live and let die. A Bond beekeeper does not do any mite treatment and if the hive is going to die he lets it. The theory is the strong survive and you breed from them. Actually I think there's another reason why the method got named the Bond method, but that's how most people remember it, live and let die.


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## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

Im trying out small cell, queens that were born after june 15th, with a brood break, adding some survival feral stock. Nothing new just following in the footsteps of some others.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

squarepeg said:


> primer: for the sake of this thread, and if barry is ok with it, it's not against any 'rule' to mention any intervention or treatment.
> 
> my interest in primarily toward understanding how beekeepers who avoid treatments deal with the varroa mite.
> 
> ...


Apparently those who don't treat don't do much or any mite counting. When I asked if anyone was interested in participating in Randy Oliver's Monthly Mite Count Study I got a resounding "NO!!". So, sp, good luck w/ your Thread.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

hmmm I buy from treatment free breeders, and never do mite counts nor treat for mites. Haven't lost a hive to mites since starting this method, going on 6-7 years now. I guess that makes me a Bond Beekeeper. 
Regards,
Steven


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## jbeshearse (Oct 7, 2009)

StevenG said:


> hmmm I buy from treatment free breeders, and never do mite counts nor treat for mites. Haven't lost a hive to mites since starting this method, going on 6-7 years now. I guess that makes me a Bond Beekeeper.
> Regards,
> Steven


What have your losses been from?


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

Mostly starvation late winter/early spring. Lost one hive to the small hive beetle. Lost a nuc to robbing. Had a newly hived swarm abscond.
Regards,
Steven


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

many thanks for the replys. i'm looking forward to joining the conversation, but the day job is holding me hostage.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i'm back, and just finished reading adam's new thread 'how long......'. i really enjoyed that.

i confess that my mite assessments didn't go beyond pulling a few drone larvae early in the season. i assumed all was well because the bees came from treatment free resistant stock, and by gross observation all appeared well as the season progressed. no mite treatments were used this year.

then i had a hive die. this one had been lagging behind the rest all along, but the number of mites i found in the alcohol wash took me by surprise. it makes me wonder if two other hives that i have, which are light on stores, are perhaps struggling with mites.

oldtimer, you have mentioned having several hives that you are managing treatment free. are you measuring mite loads in them? are you considering any intervention if they start to fail?

steveng, i know you've been at this for awhile, and i congratulate you for having one of the success stories. i mean no disrespect, but is it possible that your starvation and beetle losses occurred in colonies that were already weakened to some degree by mites? i think that you have mentioned having used 'soft treatments' in the past, can you elaborate on that? and, what is your approach to managing a hive that is in a death spiral?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Yes I do a rough method of monitoring mites, just by eyeballing the brood and the odd bit of drone sampling, same as I do for my treated hives. Wouldn't recommend this method to anyone else though especially someone just starting out. It is VERY easy for someone to underestimate their mite numbers plus the damage they are doing, I see this all the time, your last post Squarepeg, gives an example. Many people think there is no mite problem, and only wonder after the hive is actually dead. But even then they'll often attribute it to something else, I've seen claims of starvation, when honey was 1/2 inch away from the cluster.

No I won't be intervening if they fail, goes a bit against the grain but to give it a fair shot I have to use exactly the same methods as those who claim success.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood, thanks ot.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

We check for mites in the drone brood with a cappings scraper.

More than one mite in a "coop" is concerning.

We strike drone brood at all times.

Crazy roland


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

thanks roland. is a 'coop' a cappings scraper full of drone larvae? sounds like you don't normally see many mites, are you applying preventative treatments? by 'striking' drone brood at all times, you are getting rid of it, correct?


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

Squarepeg, understand your question, no problem at all. Let me address them individually.
Soft Treatments - only thing I've ever done that might qualify is feed them HBH a couple times over the years. Nothing else, and absolutely nothing for the mites. I don't consider a screened bottom board to be a treatment, it's management to me. Don't pull drone brood, don't use small cells.

SHB loss - I doubt mites had anything to do with this... hive was in full sun, was delayed in getting my traps into the colony which was a split. After a couple of months I noticed something wasn't right, opened the hive. Sigh... bees were still functioning as a colony, but the shb had pretty much taken over and slimed slimed slimed. So I saved what I could, united with a stronger colony, and put the rest in the full sun. then burned it... wasn't sure what else to do, but those frames were a loss.

Starvation - those hives succumbed late winter/early spring. Previous fall no indication of mites. I always look for deformed wings, and haven't seen any in my colonies for a couple of years. (That hive worked thru it, and did quite well, still going strong). I guess one could interpret the colonies weakened by varroa, but remember, hives were lost before varroa appeared. 

Now if I had a colony collapse June, July, or August, yes, I might suspect the mites.

Whenever I find a weakened colony, I either requeen or commit regicide and unite it with a stronger colony. If it is an impending starvation, of course I feed. If circumstances warrant, entrances are reduced, ventilation provided, shb traps installed (have used up to six in one colony), sugar syrup given. But beyond that, haven't done anything.
Hope that helps.
Steven


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

perfect steven. that helps alot. i watched closely for deformed wings this year, and i would see a rare one here and there. maybe i haven't the experience yet to recognize a mite problem short of an alcohol wash. i really like the idea of requeening or regicide/combine. thanks.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Squarepeg - You guessed right, should have been "scoop". We do see mites, but the average 'worse' is two in a full scoop at the end of the season. It is very rare to find two in the same cell on one scoop, but we have found that. Always striking the drone comb seems effective , but more effort. The one down side is that the year before last we felt we did not have good queen mating due to the lack of drones. We now give them one "Free Pass" in the spring before beginning to strike.

Crazy Roland


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## sfisher (Sep 22, 2009)

Stevg, which shb traps do you find to work the best?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

thanks roland. i looked at drone larvae earlier in the season. my more time consuming way was to use a pair of tweezers and pull the out one by one. i felt like if i pulled out 5 and didn't see a mite, they were doing good. if i found one or two, i might pull out 5 more. 

since i didn't see too many, i thought all was well. but i only did this early in the season. i got busy, complacent, whatever..... my goal is to be more dilegent about it next season.

sounds like you have your mites under control roland. can you share your secret?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

squarepeg said:


> my goal is to be more dilligent about it next season.


Looks like a good tag line. Mind if I steal it?


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it's all yours my friend!


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

You have to keep in mind when pulling drone brood, that pulling a handful of drone brood and seeing nothing doesn't mean much. You usually need to pull quite a few, and then you need to look very closely, as only the adult mites are brown/red. The younger mites are white or pale. As a beginner, take a big section of drone comb - maybe one or two hundred cells - and carefully take them apart and examine them with a magnifying glass under a good light.

You can learn a lot. I took the time to tear apart an entire frame of drone brood last spring in the sun. I had been doing small amounts of drone culling and didn't see a thing. Then I decided one day to pull a whole drone frame out, as there was this migratory bird camped out eating my bees, so I figured I'd feed it the drone brood.

Well, when I realized just how many mites were in that comb, I was blown away. It was teeming with mites. And I had treated with oxalic acid during the winter. It was that day that I decided to try treatment free.

I put the comb of brood under my hedge near the hives, and that bird ate everything.

Adam


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

very interesting. and looks like you are safe adam, i don't think anyone would consider feeding drone larvae to a migratory bird a treatment.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Normally I find mites scattered here and there in drone comb. But re the sexual reproduction thing, last year I pulled a drone comb (deep frame, all drone cells), from a hive and pulled a few cappings scratcher fulls of brood, and found no mites. I was about to declare the hive mite free, but decided out of interest to pull every larva in the comb. All the larvae were varroa free, except two. And each of those two larvae had 8, and more, foundress mites. I know they were foundress mites because the cells were recently capped there had not been time for reproduction.

I can only assume there was a strategy for the mites to group together to allow sexual reproduction between families.


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## StevenG (Mar 27, 2009)

sfisher said:


> Stevg, which shb traps do you find to work the best?


Sorry about the delay in reply, but I was out of town for the holiday.
For cost, ease of use and cleaning, I like the Beetlejail. If there are shb in the hive, there are always dead ones in the trap.
Regards,
Steven


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## Tyson Kaiser (Nov 28, 2012)

Oldtimer said:


> James Bond as in live and let die. A Bond beekeeper does not do any mite treatment and if the hive is going to die he lets it. The theory is the strong survive and you breed from them.


Wow I didn't know there was a term for us, thanks!


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