# Sticky board count is 95 after 36 hours



## indypartridge (Nov 18, 2004)

With a mite load that high you're gonna have to do something to knock them down before winter. I'd remove the super, treat, but keep feeding if they need it.


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

I'm wondering if I could follow Apiguard with Apistan....or something...I don't honestly know what to use. I'm worried that I'm going to be treating too late in the season too.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Apivar is slow acting but the bees don't seem to notice it is there. The slow acting thing goes two ways. imperative you get that one on right away. I would put on another course of apiguard. Apistan is no longer effective so don't waste your time with it. Good luck.


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

Vance G said:


> Apivar is slow acting but the bees don't seem to notice it is there. The slow acting thing goes two ways. imperative you get that one on right away. I would put on another course of apiguard. Apistan is no longer effective so don't waste your time with it. Good luck.


If I have a count of 95 after already using one tin, what could I realistically expect to get my mite drop to after a second tin? Maybe that's too difficult a question to speculate on...

**Also saw a crawler with DWV when I was mulching around the hive a few minutes ago. First one I've seen...**


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

Okay....

So what if I do another 6 weeks of Apiguard on this hive. It's probably not healthy but if I don't do something dramatic they won't make it through the winter anyway. That will take treatment through October 9th when laying would probably be shutting down. Now, even though I would have the mite count probably in check by that point (assuming the queen survives) I would still probably have high virus loads that would wipe them out before spring.

However if I fed from October 10th - say November 10th a syrup and pollen to stimulate brood rearing would I be successful enough to raise a late group of new winter bees? I'm thinking if I can stimulate a month's worth of crew I'll pile on the feed, fondant and winter wraps from there and just make sure they don't go hungry.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

And so what did you conclude about the queen status of this hive? Is it QR, or not, or waiting for a virgin queen to get established?

If waiting for a virgin to mate you are having a natural brood break, so hence you may be seing a high mite drop that is not the same as when the hive has brood.

Unless you think this is the week w/ a virgin afoot, how about doing a sugar roll to determine the phoretic infestation rate on the adults? PAssive mite drop, especially if not done almost constantly can give you a misleading picture, so sugar rolls (and alcohol/ether rolls) give youo a better, real-time fix on the mite status.

If you have little brood due to a recentqueen replacement, then OA, either dribble or vaporaization. will be immediately effective.

You could also do the one-week treatment of MAQS (formic acid). Use one strip, not two if you're anxious. Either way you should get good kill on both the phoretic and the under-capings mites. It provides pretty good knock down, can be used w supers on, etc.

DWV will break your heart, because you know it can be prevented by good mite control. But don't agonize. Get in there and kill mites and arrest the process, ASAP.

Don't let doom sayers (dead-hive flying talk) convince you there's nothing you can do. Also treat all the hives in your apiary at the same time. They may be just on the cusp of the same issues. Get the jump on it.

Enj.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I've got my pail of MAQS ready and I'm going to go kill a whole mess of mites starting tomorrow morning. I'm upset that I tinkered around too long with things that aren't very effective when there's capped brood in the colony. Especially a lot of it. If I lose a queen... so be it. Better than entire colonies this fall. I wish I'd have purchased the MAQS weeks ago when I first considered it.

Another beekeeping lesson learned. Underestimate your honey harvest, or your bees, or the amount of woodenware you're going to need in the spring... underestimate the price you can get for your honey, or the costs associated with your bees.

But NEVER underestimate the mites. Hit them and hit them hard.


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

enjambres said:


> And so what did you conclude about the queen status of this hive? Is it QR, or not, or waiting for a virgin queen to get established?
> 
> If waiting for a virgin to mate you are having a natural brood break, so hence you may be seing a high mite drop that is not the same as when the hive has brood.
> 
> ...


Hive appeared to be QR according to the brood (young larvae). The brood situation as of last week was (and I'm doing this from memory so this is approximate) 2-3 frames capped, 2 frames uncapped of varying stages so it's working off of approximately 5 frames of brood with some spatterings here and there on other frames maybe. 

I will do as you say and attempt a sugar roll and report back with the results. What figures should I be looking for with the sugar roll? Thank you so much for writing. I am in fact agonizing. 

I will see if the local store has MAQS since it is a faster solution. I haven't found any results online regarding how long the DWV lingers in the hive after the varroa population dies back...


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

jwcarlson said:


> I've got my pail of MAQS ready and I'm going to go kill a whole mess of mites starting tomorrow morning. I'm upset that I tinkered around too long with things that aren't very effective when there's capped brood in the colony. Especially a lot of it. If I lose a queen... so be it. Better than entire colonies this fall. I wish I'd have purchased the MAQS weeks ago when I first considered it.
> 
> Another beekeeping lesson learned. Underestimate your honey harvest, or your bees, or the amount of woodenware you're going to need in the spring... underestimate the price you can get for your honey, or the costs associated with your bees.
> 
> But NEVER underestimate the mites. Hit them and hit them hard.



Yeah I had no idea what I was dealing with....


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Jw, are you saying oav was a wash for you then?


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## BeeGhost (May 7, 2011)

Oxalic Acid Vapor, treat once a week for 3-4 weeks. I think all hobbyists or even those with a fair amount of hives should have a vaporizer and OA just for treating hives with high mite loads any time of year.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

JRG13 said:


> Jw, are you saying oav was a wash for you then?


I'll PM you. OAV is good at killing mites that are on the bees.


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## agastache (Jun 27, 2013)

not sure you should despair with 95 mites in 36 hr this time of year, which is about peak mite season. having just had a brood break, you probably aren't in bad shape and your counts may be artificially elevated due to the brood break as enjambres said. but you do need to get them under control using whichever method you choose. MAQS and OAV are popular and appear to be effective, and neither contaminate comb. read up on sugar, alcohol, or ether rolls for suggested maximum infestation percentages that people believe are tolerable. there are threads all over the place on BS. i doubt it is too late in the year where you are to have successful treatments and sufficient new winter brood. with OAV, my mite counts went to 1-2 per hive per 24 hr with sticky board. I think (hope) that's reasonable.


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

If I go with the MAQS, does anyone know a southern supplier who ships late season Queens in case she get killed by the FA?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

jhinshaw said:


> If I go with the MAQS, does anyone know a southern supplier who ships late season Queens in case she get killed by the FA?


I think the queen killing is a little bit on the overblown side. But I am nervous/worried about it as well. MAQS will be applied on my colonies tomorrow AM (first time MAQSer).

Much of the formic queen loss "hubbub" comes from treating when it's too hot and treatments like this: http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/varroa/FormicAcid.pdf

Where they're doing a flash 18-24 hour treatment. There is a video of a guy on YouTube who found his queen outside of his colony the day after using MAQS... it was in the 90s that day... which is above the recommended temperature range because it makes the formic vaporize too quickly.

I was going to write that surely you have a couple colonies you would cull during the fall so they don't die during winter, and as long as the queens are healthy you could use them as your reserve. But then I saw you only have two colonies. Can't give you a recommendation for a queen this late, but I'm sure there are people selling them.


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## agastache (Jun 27, 2013)

I just looked really quickly, and Kelley is still taking queen orders. if you have to order MAQS, frankly I'd just go with OAV--snl ships his brand of vaporizer lightning fast and OA itself can be had at a local hardware store. OAV is more trouble, but seems to have less effect on the bees. also very cheap once you've got the equipment. super easy to use, and my bees don't get flustered by it at all.


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## BeeGhost (May 7, 2011)

Don't worry about a 95 mite drop?? If I read correctly this is a natural mite drop, not a treated mite drop. To me that sounds like trouble, period. To say its alright because there is a brood break is also misleading, we are going into winter y'all, not summer. The hives need every young bee they can muster up. And doing an OA drizzle this time of year is dumb. OA dribble kills capped brood, you know, the same brood you need to have make it through winter. I would like to know just how you treated your hives with OAV jwcarlson. Timing, amount per treatment, how many treatments and any other detail you can provide. Since using OAV 4 years ago I have had no losses due to mites, dud queens yes, mites, no. I know a few commercial guys that use MAQS successfully, but they also know what they are doing and the weather usually cooperates with them as well.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

BeeGhost said:


> I would like to know just how you treated your hives with OAV jwcarlson. Timing, amount per treatment, how many treatments and any other detail you can provide.


Weekly for three weeks. A couple hives waited 8 days for between treatments because of torrential rains.
One gram per brood chamber (so two grams) vaporized.

I'm not saying it didn't kill mites. It did.

I have no doubt that four treatments five days apart would be more effective than three weekly ones. My goal is to enjoy my bees, not roll up vaporize vaporize vaporize vaporize vaporize vaporize then blow out for a few days and come back and do it again. Then again. Then again. I'd rather spend my time doing more meaningful things with my bees. It's just not "for me" right now. I will continue to use it in my backyard nucs, though, and for broodless winter cleanup. I'm not going to blow through a bunch of different yards every five days four times. This isn't my full time gig. 

But I honestly believe when you have big colonies with 5-8 frames of capped brood... there are just too many mites hiding. I don't want to derail the OP's thread. But I believe that signing her up for three more weeks of high mite loads using OAV isn't the ticket. OAV is a tool amongst many. It is great at what it can do, just remember than during any treatment with capped brood 80% of the mites in the colony are out of reach of OAV. If you stay on top of the mites OAV is most likely a perfectly reasonable tool even when done while capped brood is present. 

Prescribing OAV to a colony likely to die because of mite infestation is like giving someone who's flat-lined a couple of aspirin when the defibrillation paddles are hanging on the wall. Getting behind the mites calls for blood-and-guts triage stuff not preventative treatment.


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## BeeGhost (May 7, 2011)

And telling a guy to throw MAQS in his dying hive might be like driving the nail in the coffin. I can do 40 hives in a matter of maybe an hour and a half doing the OAV, once a week for three to four weeks. To each there own of course.

How many seasons have you been at this bee keeping game and how many hives?? Just curious.........


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

BeeGhost said:


> And telling a guy to throw MAQS in his dying hive might be like driving the nail in the coffin. I can do 40 hives in a matter of maybe an hour and a half doing the OAV, once a week for three to four weeks. To each there own of course.
> 
> How many seasons have you been at this bee keeping game and how many hives?? Just curious.........


Well, I'm a lady. But I suppose it's my husband's hive too sometimes lol. When there is honey. I have more to say later when I get back home. For this season, OAV is out for me because of budget after I saw the cost of the applicator so I will have to choose between probably Apiguard, Apivar Life and MAQS though I'm near ruling out MAQS because FA may kill the queen and I'd have potential trouble finding new queens and my overall kill #s might be high because the colony is overall rather weak because of the high infestation levels....

Still working on which would be the best fix. Killing under capped brood is must for sure .


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## agastache (Jun 27, 2013)

whichever of those you can get ahold of should be fine, follow the application instructions and kill those mites! wishing you healthy bees.


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

agastache said:


> whichever of those you can get ahold of should be fine, follow the application instructions and kill those mites! wishing you healthy bees.


Thank you so much for your input i think next year i may try to go with oxalic acid I'm just a bit behind the curve this year...I appreciate that you took the time to help!


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

jwcarlson said:


> I think the queen killing is a little bit on the overblown side. But I am nervous/worried about it as well. MAQS will be applied on my colonies tomorrow AM (first time MAQSer).
> 
> Much of the formic queen loss "hubbub" comes from treating when it's too hot and treatments like this: http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/varroa/FormicAcid.pdf
> 
> ...


I found this old thread too on MAQS that you might like. The comment from "OldTimer" made me nervous for treatment this fall for me, however I think it would be an AWESOME springtime treatment...

"FA is not suitable for hives with very high mite levels, those bees are weakened and the FA can deliver the coup de grass to the hive. When I'm doing my fall FA treatments I will find a few hives suffering from mites badly, and they get treated with Apivar instead or the odds of loosing their queens or the entire hive are too high."

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?303868-MAQS-and-Queen-kill


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

Just a follow up question: 

Following treatment how should I monitor my mite drops? Do you monitor during and after for an extended period?


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## agastache (Jun 27, 2013)

i think most people would agree that alcohol or ether washes are the best way to monitor mite levels. ether is very flammable and I would not mess with it, and I'm not sure how easy it is to get anyway. search for alcohol washes here on beesource or go to scientificbeekeeping.com to read about how to do it. sticky boards are not very accurate, but you may be able to get a general idea of how things are going from them. good idea to get an idea what your true mite load is before treatment so you can compare post-treatment levels to that.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

You could try a single pad dose of MAQS, which should get you decent knockdown. You could follow up with a second in a month. Are your daytime max temps down to the very low 80s by now? That's the limit I use, for safety.

You can easily learn to do a sugar roll from online sources (youTubes and text resources). Equipment is cheap and readily available (measuring cup, measuring spoons, canning jar, screening, lid, powdered sugar and an old light colored dishwashing pan or litter box). If you have more than a 2-3% infestation rate. Treat at once. Make sure you aren't testing your queen!

Dithering is my besetting fault when it comes to my bees.

Good luck!

Enj.


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## jhinshaw (Aug 14, 2014)

enjambres said:


> You could try a single pad dose of MAQS, which should get you decent knockdown. You could follow up with a second in a month. Are your daytime max temps down to the very low 80s by now? That's the limit I use, for safety.
> 
> You can easily learn to do a sugar roll from online sources (youTubes and text resources). Equipment is cheap and readily available (measuring cup, measuring spoons, canning jar, screening, lid, powdered sugar and an old light colored dishwashing pan or litter box). If you have more than a 2-3% infestation rate. Treat at once. Make sure you aren't testing your queen!
> 
> ...


Our temps should be in the low 80s to high 70s this week. When you test before and after treatment with a sugar roll, do you test a week after your first treatment? How long do you wait? 

I dither a lot myself lol....


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