# Rethinking my varroa plan



## Specialkayme

This past year was a rough year for me. I lost all my nucs to excessive robbing, and lost all but two of my full hives to various issues. I believe heavy mite loads seriously contributed to the problem. 



Ever since 2005 I've taken the Soft Bond approach. I refused to treat for varroa systematically, and instead would only do so in order to save the hive from destruction. My goal was to become treatment free. By doing so, I was planning on keeping the constant pressure of having to deal with varroa in the hive, teaching the bees (hopefully) to deal with varroa rather than to deal with the treatments. In practice though, while my plan was to treat when absolutely necessary, I didn't do mite counts and would consider the occasional (or the few) DWV bees as part of the learning process. I ended up not applying any treatments since 2005. The end result, as you can immagine, was several dead hives. Additionally, my breeding was elementary at best, so while the plan was to teach the bees to deal with varroa and select for the best, that's not what I was doing. Moving forward, I'm tired of losing so many hives. I still want to progress toward tolerance, but I think I've realized that treating is going to have to be something I'm more comfortable with.



So in reassessing my varroa plan, I was hoping a few of you could help me with a few questions. First, how do you measure mite counts? I've read conflicting information regarding sticky boards, alcohol washes, sugar rolls, and plain old not counting. What is the best, most accurate, but still simple method to check for mite levels, and what is an abnormal mite count. Second, I'm afraid I don't know much about mite treatments, not using them much since 2005. I would like a non-invasive control method that doesn't leave any resedue, but is still effective enough to knock them back. I have zero experience with essential oils, and I've heard good things about HopGuard (I think it's called). Thoughts?


----------



## squarepeg

it's more than one night's read, but imo randy oliver's site has the most comprehensive info on mite control that i have found so far.


----------



## David LaFerney

One option might be to go treatment free with some hives while doing something fairly mainstream with the rest. We all have to face our own limitations and deal with them. Since I know that i'm not likely to make the time to monitor mite levels fastidiously I have to do something else.


----------



## twd8711

the easiest way i found to check on mites is to use the boards that go into screened bottoms, sprayed with pam, and check the next day, ill take several boards and keep moving them around to different hives, after a while you will be able to tell which ones have a problem, its not scientific but it does tell me which ones should be treated, if you come across one that has alot do an alcohol roll to get an idea of the comparison between the board and roll. paint bottom boards with white semi gloss so they are easy to see mites and clean after each hive.


----------



## Charlie B

I don't see the point in doing the sugar shake or alcohol wash test. I know all my hives have mites so I powder sugar dust them all once a week for three weeks in a row in spring, summer and fall. Powdered sugar knocks off at least some of the mites and I haven't lost a hive yet this winter. (I also freeze drone comb in the summer). 1 hour after the initial dusting, there can be up to 200 mites on the sticky board. 

IMHO, I think of myself as treatment free because I don't think powdered sugar should count as a "treatment" compared to MAQS or HopGuard. I don't let someone else opinion of what treatment free is define me or my method of beekeeping.


----------



## megank

The definition of "treatment free' is in the eye of the beholder....I would equate dusting with powder sugar the same drone trapping, which is the same as hopguard, which is the same as oxalic dribble/vaporization.

It's all how one chooses to define "treatment free"


----------



## WWW

specialkay, you said a few things that ring true to me and not wanting to loose anymore hives is one of them, seeing an occasional DWV hive speaks of heavy mite loads, and I would have surely lost my hive this winter if I had not used Oxalic vapor to kill the mites. I am 100% in agreement with Charlie and Megank concerning treatment or treatment free definitions. If I loose the one hive that I have then I am wiped out and I cannot afford to keep starting over again each year, I do not have the correct setup to do sugar dusting and drone freezing as of yet but I will for sure continue with the Oxalic vapor spring and fall to keep the mites knocked down, it is cheap to use and does not enter the wax. The care of your bees is in your hands so you will have to do what you feel is right for them, weigh all the options and make a choice as to what you feel is the best care for your bees....Bill


----------



## Oldtimer

David LaFerney said:


> One option might be to go treatment free with some hives while doing something fairly mainstream with the rest. We all have to face our own limitations and deal with them. Since I know that i'm not likely to make the time to monitor mite levels fastidiously I have to do something else.


That's what I'm doing ATM. The small cell hives are being run by the "treatment free book", and will be allowed to die if that happens. But because I've got treated hives there are plenty of bees and restocking a treatment free deadout will not be too dificult.

However that will obvoiusly be a short term measure, if it turns out the small cell beed cannot survive without restocking, I will eventually give up om small cell.


----------



## Adrian Quiney WI

SpecialKay, in the first post you say you lost your nuc's to robbing. I know it is depressing to revisit it, but how did this happen? There is no criticism implied in this as I am trying to learn, and plan for nucs to be an ongoing part of my small operation.
If your nucs had been able to survive would you still be considering monitoring mites so closely?


----------



## honeyshack

Specialkayme,
you might want to move from this forum to the disease forum. There are alot of post in regards to treatments and mites there, and the posts here might get editted out because of the discussion of treatments.
This thread might be helpful
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?262670-varroa-symptoms

Along with Randy Oliver, here is another site to check out. Randy's site is great by the way.
This capa site deals with the mite count thresholds...when to treat and when is acceptable not to. The thing is, when you add in pressures such as nosema, dearth, viruses, your threshold numbers drop considerably.

http://www.capabees.com/main/files/pdf/varroathreshold.pdf

This article was in the Feb 2011 abj and it sums up the value of each treatment It is written by Randy Oliver
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/miticides-2011/

Here is a link to most of RO's mite articles, but check out the nosema and pathogen ones too.
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/varroa-management/

Finally as to testing.
The drop method....good if you keep doing it. Several, many tests over the course of the year to get an acurrate picture of where your hive is at in regards to mite counts...converting to a % slightly difficult
The alcohol wash method...easy to do, from the brood box, with brood on the frame. Easy to get a %. Gives a bird eye view of your hive at that moment. Can collect samples and then finish hive work, then read the results for best results. Drawback, since you are working on the brood frames, the queen must be found to ensure she is not tested. Results are best read after a couple of hours in the wash.

Good luck with whatever you chose.

As a side note, the sasktraz project...an isolated yard of hives in Saskatchewn Canada, where they were studying mite loads, bee survival with mite loads with no treatment, and honey production. The last i heard, they could not get a hive to live more than 3 years, with requeening. I am not talking about a split from the hives, but the parent colony could not survive more than three years due to mite loads, vectored viruses, and other pressures.


----------



## deknow

And we are back in the land of absurdity....
"My treatment free bees are.treated for mites.with powdered sugar."
"I'm.a.treatment free beekeeper who's bees will be overrun mites if I don't treat with powdered sugar.

Deknow


----------



## Solomon Parker

I have moved this thread to the Diseases and Pests forum.

There's just no way from the first post to the last that this thread can be interpreted to fall under the 'treatment-free' genre.

You'll want some other category, soft treatments, organic, 'natural', IPM or something along those lines.


Non-moderatorial comment:

Beekeeping without treatments is not about 'teaching' the bees how to deal with problems. They cannot be trained like higher animals to perform tricks. Problem genetics must be excised, through requeening or through death. Pests must be dealt with without resorting to helping the bees with unnatural crutches. I realize dealing with losses is hard. I've been there, and I'm still there, every year. But it must be done, and to keep bees treatment-free successfully and sustainably, one must overcome obstacles without giving up on the philosophy. The best way to absorb losses is to have more bees. One cannot keep bees treatment-free sustainably with only a couple hives. It's simply not the way it works at this point in history. There is simply too great a chance that one will lose all their bees at once at some point.


----------



## rrussell6870

These are posts that I made this morning on my site to try to help you on this issue a bit...

A few things that you mentioned in your original post may be helpful in getting you back going... first, you mentioned excessive robbing... many people view robbing as a form of aggression or thieving, but it is more a form of natural preservation/selection... in the wild, when colonies reproduce by throwing swarms, the swarms will have to take advantage of the remainder of the flow to brood up enough and store enough food to protect themselves and provide for themselves during the dearth... naturally, all colonies will attempt to rob each other and the victor will promote the better genetics for survivability into the next season... if the swarms do build up in time, then they will rarely fall victim to the robbing period... so most losses from robbing are more an issue of timing or not enough brood and house bees in the hive in time for the dearth... washboarding is a good sign that they are prepared to defend themselves and so robbing will be much less of an issue... 

when running a mating yard, robbing can be very difficult during the dearths mainly because you are having to weaken nucs by taking queens and weaken hives for cell building... so learning your flows or developing a feeding program to limit the effects of the dearth will help... next you mentioned that instead of testing for mite loads, you were watching more for dwv... this can be problematic in that dwv can be present for reasons other than mites, and can be hard to spot in early development stages when it is caused by heavy mite loads... 

in other words, seeing one or two dwv bees may not be an indicator at all, but by the time there are enough dwv bees in the hive that you notice them readily, the mite load is likely already reaching the point that the hive may suffer too greatly even with treatment... again, leading to heavy losses that appear more like robbing simply because a large enough portion of several generations of workers are adversely effected by the mites and thus unable to serve their purpose of defending during the upcoming dearths... When selecting a treatment, you need to take your type of operation into account... if you are raising queens, you don't want to be using anything that will sterilize your drones or queens obviously, but you still need to address heavy mite loads to produce healthy drone populations... this is sort of a "grey area" where helpful info becomes hard to give because each particular situation (hive, yard, purpose, etc..) is different and it will really come down to a personal decision... if you are focussing on breeding for resistances, you may feel that you shouldn't be producing drones from hives that may need treatment... that is a worthy thought, but there can also be simple mechanics involved that caused the heavier than manageable mite loads in the first place... so again, each situation really has to be evaluated directly... 

for this situation, you can go back to your selection methods to start with and for a safe alternative to treating drone colonies or cell finishers, you can simply cause breaks in the brood cycle to knock down mite loads... an example of the first part of that last statement... if you are selecting for mite resistance, you may have many things that you are actually looking for... these things are the mechanics that actually cause the colony to be resistant... such as vsh, forager grooming, mite chewing, accurate shutdown, etc... many people simply look at whether or not the colony is still alive after not being treated, but that selection process can be broken down into specific traits that can each be promoted to develop a more effective defense against varroa... so a colony may be able to survive mites one year by simply grooming them from foragers as they return to the hive, but then suffer a long dearth and even after surviving heavy robbing attempts, they take on a heavy infestation of mites from the robbers... this is where vsh and mite chewing would have saved the colony, but since it does not have those traits yet, it dies during its second season of no treatments... let's say that this one hive was the only one in that yard that aggressively groomed returning foragers... now that it is gone, that trait is no longer being promoted within that yard... if the mechanics were identified earlier, and the mite loads had been recorded, the breeder may have chosen to save that hive and promote that trait to compliment the other forms of resistances within the yard... hope this helps.

Basically, to get to the point where you can go without treating AND without having major losses, its going to take time... if you study your colonies closely enough, you will find that the resistances that you seek are already there, but may be spread thin or you may have another stressor that amplifies the mite issue, or you may even have an external mite population source that causes an over abundance of mites that even strong resistances cannot control... either way, it will take time, expense, and hard work to get to the point that you can select from a pool of colonies that do not need treatments and rear queens and nucs in a treatment free operation... for most, its just not a sound business plan... each operation is different, the only commonality is we all get stung from time to time.


----------



## TWall

Without knowing what mite loads are it is tough to tell if mites are truly the culprit. I have seen bees with DWV symptoms in some colonies with low mite loads, some with high mite loads. I do not visit my hives daily so I use a sugar roll to measure mite loads. I have a routine worked out where it does not add too much time to hive inspections. 

I had two colonies with high mite loads last summer. I decided to treat them by requeening. They both had the same genetics, russian, and weren't very mite resistant. I requeened them by making nucs with the new queens, made the high mite hives hopelessly queenless. Once there was no capped brood in the hives I did a newspaper combine with the nuc with the new queen.

Right now one of those hives is my strongest hive based on landing board activity on warm days. The other was robbed out late this fall, it never fully recovered from the mite load and breaking the brood cycle.

I have had one colony die so far this winter. It was started as a package with a russian queen this spring and built up two deeps and a medium. I got a little honey from it. It was dead by the end of December. Mite load during the summer was low. When I tore it down there was two small patches of capped brood and lots of stores. I assume mites got it even though I didn't find high numbers in late summer. 

I am opening my thoughts on treatments. I'd prefer to be treatment free. I think it the right circumstances breaking the breed cycle can be an effective treatment. I'm also going to be looking into oxalic acid treatments. More over-wintered nucs will be in my management plans. My preference would be to not use treatments but, I'm not willing to let colonies die without doing something.

The plus side is I have plenty of comb and stores to start splits with this spring!

Tom


----------



## rrussell6870

Thats the spirit Tom! That drawn comb is like having diamonds in my opinion! lol. Did you run any SunKist queens this year?


----------



## oldreliable

read a book titled FRUITLESS FALL..look it up. We need to stop throwing chemical treatment or witches brew after the problem. We humans seem to think we can gain control of everything Mother Nature throws at us. She is going to run her course regardless. The only way to defeat this is through breeding resistant traits..BTW original post..we do no teach bees anything. Good luck with your bees...


----------



## Specialkayme

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> SpecialKay, in the first post you say you lost your nuc's to robbing. I know it is depressing to revisit it, but how did this happen?


Not entirely sure. I had a number of mating nucs going into the beginning of fall. My plan was to take these and turn them into overwintered nucs. Some were two frame nucs, others four frame. I was trying to put some weight on them to make sure they would be able to go into the winter based on their smaller size. I was also trying to take the two frames and get them to four or five frames before the end of fall. Because of that, and the massive summer dearth we had, I put quart mason jars with a few pin holes on the nucs, filled with 2:1. The entrances were down to 1/2". I left, got busy with work and life, and came back two or three weeks later to find all the nucs gone. Completely abandoned, brood and all. My guess is they were robbed out, but it could have been a combination of factors, including opperator error



Adrian Quiney WI said:


> If your nucs had been able to survive would you still be considering monitoring mites so closely?


Probably not. I understood that going treatment free (or reducing the treatments) would produce a large number of hive losses. I was willing to accept this. But, because I don't have hundreds of hives (at the time I think I had 8 hives), MASSIVE numbers would be hard for me to swallow. That's why I made up the nucs (I think I had 13 at one point). The theory was if I had large losses, I could still replace them with the nucs. When that didn't become possible it became clear that I had a problem moving forward. The treatment free thing wasn't working, and the replacement thing wasn't working either.


----------



## Specialkayme

Solomon Parker said:


> I have moved this thread to the Diseases and Pests forum.


So be it 

I was tossing between going in "treatment free" and "diseases." Because I am currently (although somewhat accidentally) considering myself treatment free, and I would like to eventually get back to it at some point, I was valuing the opinion of fellow treatment free beekps a little more. But that's fine


----------



## TWall

rrussell6870 said:


> Thats the spirit Tom! That drawn comb is like having diamonds in my opinion! lol. Did you run any SunKist queens this year?


Dr Russell,

I'm planning on getting some Sunkist queens this spring. You aren't sold out yet are you??

Tom


----------



## Specialkayme

oldreliable said:


> ..BTW original post..we do no teach bees anything.


Agreed. While I used the word "teach" I didn't mean it to be used in the same sense of how you teach a dog to sit. 

Instead, by adding the constant pressure of mites to a hive, and then breeding from successful colonies, the bees will, through successive generations, "learn" to deal with the mite issues. So while I can't "teach" the bees to do anything, they can "learn" to deal with the issues, and I can give them an environment conducive to learning.


----------



## David LaFerney

Dr Russell - glad to see you didn't abscond. I *hope* you were on a very nice vacation.


----------



## rrussell6870

It was very nice to just be a husband and a daddy for a while... thank you. My wife got tired of babysitting me and sent me back to work like sending the kids back to school after the summer break. Lol. I missed my bees a lot, but was under strict orders to refrain from anything bee related... its like trying to quit smoking cold turkey! Lol. 

Tom, still have openings. Thanks.


----------



## Rich V

Just thinking,are there alot of larve and eggs that die from the powder sugar treatment?


----------



## Specialkayme

rrussell6870 said:


> ... its like trying to quit smoking cold turkey! Lol.


I know the feeling. I had to "quit" for the first two months of last summer. Gave me the shakes!


----------



## Specialkayme

rrussell6870 said:


> ... naturally, all colonies will attempt to rob each other and the victor will promote the better genetics for survivability into the next season...


For me the problem with mating was two fold. First, the strong, larger colonies were taking from the nucs. This put the nucs out of commission. Two, once the nucs were gone, the colonies had succumb to mite issues (guessing). I can deal with one, or the other, but both in the same season put me almost out of commission. 

But, if the issue was one of brood coverage, I guess I'm just going to have to abandon the idea of using a two or three frame mating nuc that late in the season.


----------



## Specialkayme

rrussell6870 said:


> when running a mating yard, robbing can be very difficult during the dearths mainly because you are having to weaken nucs by taking queens and weaken hives for cell building... so learning your flows or developing a feeding program to limit the effects of the dearth will help...


Around here we only have one flow. Tulip Poplar. That one is early spring. Some other nectar will trickle in throughout the summer, but it isn't like I have any "flows" to work around. Often, it will turn from a trickle to a dearth within a short period of time. This may just mean that once spring is over I have to assume and plan as if we are ALWAYS in a dearth.

I was also feeding when the nucs were wiped out. It may have exacerbated the issue, but I thought if some nectar was being consumed it would make them a little more complacent . . . guess not . . .


----------



## Gypsi

Charlie's system is what I used last year with good success. Only no one told me how to dust the sugar on, so I took a paintbrush, dipped it in dry powdered sugar and painted my bees once a week for 3 weeks. Had a mite count of zero in 2 day drop over a clean stickyboard. Then I got robbed out... It's always somethin'. But I am sticking with my powdered sugar. (it was a short post, and worth repeating, so I quoted the whole thing...)



Charlie B said:


> I don't see the point in doing the sugar shake or alcohol wash test. I know all my hives have mites so I powder sugar dust them all once a week for three weeks in a row in spring, summer and fall. Powdered sugar knocks off at least some of the mites and I haven't lost a hive yet this winter. (I also freeze drone comb in the summer). 1 hour after the initial dusting, there can be up to 200 mites on the sticky board.


----------



## Specialkayme

So obviously waiting for dwv wasn't a good idea. I realize this now. What method do you use to check mite levels, and what's a "threshold" level for your operation?

I've read lots of talk about threshold levels, and when to start treating, but lets be honest about a few things. Randy Oliver claims that you should be treating if you have more than 1-5 mites per 300 bees. When it comes to numbers that low, it's really more about the randomness of the testing than it is about the mite counts. Sure, if you have 300 mites per 300 bees you have an issue. But is he really advocating that 4 mites per 300 bees is acceptable, while 6 isn't?

Additionally, bees won't be allowed to develop a resistance to mites if they aren't present. For that reason the breeder in France (can't remember his name) is trying to import and purchase mites to infest his hives to keep his resistance up (as well as to test his mite resistance). Entirely removing the mites won't allow me to test for resistance. So what level is enough, what level is too much, and (shocking question) what level is not enough?



rrussell6870 said:


> ... either way, it will take time, expense, and hard work to get to the point that you can select from a pool of colonies that do not need treatments and rear queens and nucs in a treatment free operation...


I think the lesson that I learned this year, if nothing else, would be this: No doubt it will take alot of time, expense, and hard work to head toward a treatment free operation. But the small time breeder that only has a dozen or so hives can easily lose all their hard work if some other stressor comes along and wipes out their colonies. At that point, whatever resistance they built up in their gene pool would be all for nothing, and they get the glory of starting over from scratch. This is something that the guy with 100 or so hives doesn't really have to deal with. It's possible to lose all 5 hives in a yard due to robbing (or bears, nosema, mites, starvation, flooding, ect.), but it's much less likely to lose all 100 hives in a yard due to robbing (or bears, nosema, mites, starvation, flooding, ect.).


----------



## Adrian Quiney WI

SpecialKayme, I wonder if the nuc issue was a matter of timing. I have a similar sized apiary 9 nucs, and 12 hives. My nucs were established during the first two weeks of July and were not fed at that time as the flow was on, and they were fairly well provisioned when I made the splits. The front bottom entrence was screened with #8 mesh cloth, and like yours I left just a 1/2 inch opening. I didn't feed them anything until September when they each got a pollen patty and 2 gallons of 2:1. I think robbing attempts may have been minimized by a heavy Goldenrod flow and by that time the nucs were very strong. 
I have been very lucky with the timing of these events. I started the nucs at this time because of Mel Disselkoen's theory of queens mated after June 21 performing better. I'm starting to think my motto will be "Go with the flow". It seems to me that everything is easier on the flow, as the bees need fewer bees to keep brood warm, the population of drones is as big as its going to get, and the availability of resources makes it easy for all. 
This fall was so mild that I had a hive I was putting off shaking out because it was queenless - I have a hard time shaking out bees I even feel bad thinning carrots! Anyway, the fall was so mild that as I was halfway through shaking out this queenless hive on October 7th I saw a small patch of eggs. I looked in the grass where I'd shaken and found the queen and put her and the rest of the frames back together. That hive is now strong and happy. 
I suppose my message is that I know that my success this winter is due in large part to luck, and luck goes both ways it could just have easily all gone bad. Thanks for sharing what happened to you, and I hope your next season is more satisfying.


----------



## Solomon Parker

Specialkayme said:


> I think the lesson that I learned this year, if nothing else, would be this: No doubt it will take alot of time, expense, and hard work to head toward a treatment free operation.


I don't agree with you. It may take a bit of time, but I've achieved a sustainable operation in 2-3 years twice now. I don't find it to be any harder than keeping bees any other way except the part where I have to stand by and do nothing while hives that I hold dear die. But each spring, they are replaced, either by splits or by additions. Each spring, fewer replacements are needed, but more are made as I expand further. If everything holds out this year, my losses are down to 9%.

Are you using small cell? Anecdotal evidence shows a correlation between cell size and survival.

Oh, there I went and stepped in it.


----------



## David LaFerney

There apparently isn't any scientific proof, but there are an awful lot of reputable people with the same anecdotal evidence.

I still don't believe that mobile homes cause tornadoes though.


----------



## Specialkayme

Solomon Parker said:


> It may take a bit of time, but I've achieved a sustainable operation in 2-3 years twice now.


Based on what I've read, you are the only one that was able to accomplish this in that time period. Kirk Webster, Randy Oliver, and Michael Palmer couldn't do it once in 2-3 years, let alone twice. Maybe it isn't as easy as you would suggest . . .


----------



## Specialkayme

Solomon Parker said:


> Are you using small cell? Anecdotal evidence shows a correlation between cell size and survival.


Forgive me if I'm wrong, but what evidence are you talking about? All of the studies that I've read that correlate cell size with mites, or cell size with survival, have shown either no correlation at all between the two, or one study that actually showed a NEGATIVE correlation.

Not saying either is right, don't use small cell myself, just wondering what your source is.


----------



## jim lyon

Solomon Parker said:


> Each spring, fewer replacements are needed, but more are made as I expand further. If everything holds out this year, my losses are down to 9%.
> t.


Are you claiming a 91% survival rate on hives over 1year old or older? Please expand.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Solomon Parker said:


> It may take a bit of time, but I've achieved a sustainable operation in 2-3 years twice now.


How does one achieve a sustainable operation more than once? If the process has to be repeated, it wasn't sustainable the first time around.


----------



## Stonefly7

maybe it's that Arkansas flow! SK , sorry for your losses, but don't give up. I think you were on the right track and have come to the conclusion as to where the issues were. I was fortunate to have several hundred hives to try what you did in one yard. We focused on one yard. The first three years were terrible losses, trying to get the genitics where we wanted. The fifth year we had a 32% loss rate, but were feeding the yard with overwintered nucs to reach what we considered sustainable. The key is with the breeding.
Come up to EAS this year and talk to Michael and some of the folks. You will learn more than you will ever imagine from folks who have walked that path. Hope to see you there.

Kind regards


----------



## Solomon Parker

Specialkayme said:


> Kirk Webster, Randy Oliver, and Michael Palmer couldn't do it once in 2-3 years, let alone twice.


Randy Oliver and Michael Palmer are not treatment-free. Kirk Webster doesn't use small cell and seems to be doing just fine. Michael Bush is also doing just fine, someone who is truly treatment-free and on small cell.



Specialkayme said:


> Forgive me if I'm wrong, but what evidence are you talking about?


Anecdotal evidence. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdotal_evidence



jim lyon said:


> Are you claiming a 91% survival rate on hives over 1year old or older?


Winter survival rate. Number of colonies in October divided by number of colonies in March. I'm not claiming anything, that's the fact.



Michael Palmer said:


> How does one achieve a sustainable operation more than once?


By moving. 

I had achieved a sustaining population of 5 colonies from 20 in Oregon. I moved them and all but one were unable to handle the winters here. Since that collapse, my winter survival rate has gone from 30% to 63% to 91% the last three winters respectively. Admittedly, the winter is not yet over, however, past trends show that 2/3 of losses occur before New Year's Day.


----------



## Specialkayme

Solomon Parker said:


> Kirk Webster doesn't use small cell and seems to be doing just fine.


And he didn't do it in two years.

I also wasn't aware that he was on small cell. Last I checked, he made his own foundation that was considered larger than small cell. I could be wrong though.



Solomon Parker said:


> Michael Bush is also doing just fine, someone who is truly treatment-free and on small cell.


Who also didn't do it in two years.

My point remains the same. You are the only person I've heard of that can accomplish what they claim in two to three years, let alone doing the same thing twice. This tells me that either you know something no one else knows, you are doing something no one else is doing, or it isn't as "easy" as you indicate.



Solomon Parker said:


> Anecdotal evidence. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdotal_evidence





> anecdotal evidence (uncountable)
> 
> A limited selection of examples which support or refute an argument, but which are not supported by scientific or statistical analysis.  [quotations ▼]


Maybe my question should have been clearer, as I'm aware of what anecdotal evidence means. What limited selection of examples are you using in which to support your argument? 

Anecdotal evidence suggests that you have some evidence, but it isn't scientific or statistical. Other than "it works" I haven't heard any evidence, anecdotal or not, to support small cell.


----------



## rrussell6870

For the robbing issue, extending your flow may be an option... are the bees in a rural area where you could seed it with clover and wild radish? If not, there is always my fathers old trick of seeding the edges of the roads. Lol.

Ball clover in bloom still today (January 19) at 32 degrees after many nights of low 20's...
http://i1040.photobucket.com/albums/b404/RussellApiaries/IMAG0824.jpg

http://i1040.photobucket.com/albums/b404/RussellApiaries/IMAG0825.jpg

Crimson Clover in bloom still today (January 19) under the same conditions...
http://i1040.photobucket.com/albums/b404/RussellApiaries/IMAG0823.jpg


----------



## honeyshack

Specialkayme said:


> So obviously waiting for dwv wasn't a good idea. I realize this now. What method do you use to check mite levels, and what's a "threshold" level for your operation?
> 
> I already mentioned what ways i test for mites.....alcohol wash method. I do some drop counts, but find the alcohol wash method cheaper, quicker and cleaner. As for mite thresholds that depends on the time of the year. In May when the bees are building for our flow, > 1% will see a reduction in honey production and will see colonies loose steam in August. > than 2% in the first part of September will see colony losses over winter. Mite poplutations double every three weeks. Brood damage occurs at 4%....DWV and other viruses. That said, other stressors can and will reduce the ecomonic thresholds by alot.
> 
> I've read lots of talk about threshold levels, and when to start treating, but lets be honest about a few things. Randy Oliver claims that you should be treating if you have more than 1-5 mites per 300 bees. When it comes to numbers that low, it's really more about the randomness of the testing than it is about the mite counts. Sure, if you have 300 mites per 300 bees you have an issue. But is he really advocating that 4 mites per 300 bees is acceptable, while 6 isn't?
> 
> Randy Oliver is not the only one who advocates these numbers. I already gave you the CAPA bee sight recommendations. By the way, any hive which has 300 mites is in trouble and it is too late already. The threshold levels are guidelines. Remember, mites double in three weeks. Remember threshold levels change during the season. Keeping mite counts low in the spring will ensure a honey crop. Now if you only have hives to have hives, then they are guaranteed to bring in enough honey for their winter and maybe a bit for your winter. Low mite loads in the fall will increase your winter survival rate. Remember, as long as they have brood, the mites will increase. As long as the winter is warm enough for brood production on any level, your mites will increase....this is during a time when you can do nothing about it cause....IT IS WINTER.
> 
> Additionally, bees won't be allowed to develop a resistance to mites if they aren't present.
> 
> Mites are always present. Even with treatments some are left behind to increase over time. There is no treatment which will eradicat the mite from your hive. Complete resistance, if it worked would be shouted from the roof tops and everyone would be apart of it. The reality is, a hive with mite pressure will succum to the pressure within three years. The reality is, those who are "treatment free" keep the stock up by overwintering nucs as replacements. The reality is that "original, parent colony" will not survive past the three year mark even if they are allowed to supercede the queen or queen introduction is done every year. The mites will outpace the bees, and viruses and noseam will take it down to a destroyable colony in the spring of year three. The reason why so many do not realize this fact is, when the hive dies at year three or even year two, they see the butts in the cells and figure starevation, or some other thing took them down refusing to believe that the onset of mite pressure in year one, is the culprit of the year three death.
> 
> I think the lesson that I learned this year, if nothing else, would be this: No doubt it will take alot of time, expense, and hard work to head toward a treatment free operation. But the small time breeder that only has a dozen or so hives can easily lose all their hard work if some other stressor comes along and wipes out their colonies. At that point, whatever resistance they built up in their gene pool would be all for nothing, and they get the glory of starting over from scratch. This is something that the guy with 100 or so hives doesn't really have to deal with. It's possible to lose all 5 hives in a yard due to robbing (or bears, nosema, mites, starvation, flooding, ect.), but it's much less likely to lose all 100 hives in a yard due to robbing (or bears, nosema, mites, starvation, flooding, ect.).


Ya...ok! If i had the time to give you my life bee story I would. Suffice it to say, I lost a grand total of 98% of my hives in the summer and winter of 2010/11. Reason.....the added stresses of over land flooding resulting in plant stress and the added stresses of nosema and disease. The reality is though, none of those factors would have been _as much of a problem_ if my mite loads were lower and better managed in the three years leading up to it. Did i mention we had over 225 hive in the summer of 2010? The losses of this magnatude almost killed the bee part of the farm. It will take several years to recover financially from this set back.
I could give you another life story of the hives we bought from a friend who was in financial trouble. We bought with my disease radar blinded by the neeed to help a friend. The friend lost over 50% of the hives in one winter due to not feeding and not treating. That spring we bought the remaining. Ask me how many were left by the fall of 2010. Out of 40 we had 8. By the spring of 2011 0! The colonies were purchased in 2008. The lost honey production, the lost purchased hives, and the lost available splits set us back financially by 4 years, maybe more.

No matter how you dice it, mites and their thresholds will have an effect on your hives. If you want to go treatment free, then you need extra nucs to supplement your losses.


----------



## Solomon Parker

Specialkayme said:


> And he didn't do it in two years.


I said 2-3 years. Call it three winters.



Specialkayme said:


> I also wasn't aware that he was on small cell.


That's what I said. He's not on small cell.



Specialkayme said:


> Who also didn't do it in two years.


 He claims small cell solves problems immediately and that a crash is not necessary. That's where he and I differ.



Specialkayme said:


> or it isn't as "easy" as you indicate.


I have always said it was hard. I was taking issue with your saying that it was a long and expensive process. It is hard. It is very hard to watch hives die. I'm the first to admit that. However, over the years, it's become easier for me because I know that the process is beneficial and it will all pan out. Perhaps it is very hard if your only goal in beekeeping is to sit back with a fixed number of hives and make honey. I'll be the first to tell you that treatment-free beekeeping doesn't work that way.



Specialkayme said:


> Other than "it works" I haven't heard any evidence, anecdotal or not, to support small cell.


It works for me and I use small cell. It's not working for you. Draw whatever inferences you may. I only claim anecdotal evidence and the Piccirillo and De Jong study. I use it, Bush uses it, Lusby uses it. All have kept bees for more than eight years under that regime without losing 100% of colonies at any single point. That is the anecdotal evidence.

Ultimately, I can't say anything about what results you should get if you don't do the things I do. The truth is, nobody does except Dee Lusby and Michael Bush. I can't comment on keeping bees any other way. You seem to bristle at the suggestion of using small cell. So be it. Don't use it. But I can't tell you to expect treatment-free beekeeping to be successful any other way because I don't have that experience.


----------



## Specialkayme

rrussell6870 said:


> If not, there is always my fathers old trick of seeding the edges of the roads. Lol.


I have seriously considered doing that, lol . . .


----------



## Specialkayme

honeyshack said:


> If you want to go treatment free, then you need extra nucs to supplement your losses.


Which is why I ramped up my nuc production last year. When they got taken out, and all but two hives folded, it became evident that I had a real problem. If I could out split (or out graft) my losses while being treatment free, I would. But if my splits are dying from robbing (or other symptoms causing robbing) and my colonies are dying from mites, I'm going to be out of this game real quick.


----------



## Specialkayme

Solomon Parker said:


> I have always said it was hard.





Solomon Parker said:


> I don't find it to be any harder than keeping bees any other way except the part where I have to stand by and do nothing while hives that I hold dear die.


Maybe I misinterpreted your post.


----------



## Solomon Parker

Solomon Parker said:


> I have always said it was hard. I was taking issue with your saying that it was a long and expensive process. It is hard.* It is very hard to watch hives die.* I'm the first to admit that.





Specialkayme said:


> Maybe I misinterpreted your post.


Just selective quoting.


----------



## Specialkayme

Fine. I don't think the point of this is how hard you think treatment free is, or how fast you can get there. Neither helps me (or anyone else reading this).


----------



## Solomon Parker

Specialkayme said:


> I'm tired of losing so many hives....Thoughts?


If you're not willing to lose hives or try small cell, then I have nothing for you. Because that's how I did it, and as far as I know, that's the only way it gets done.


----------



## frazzledfozzle

soloman I dont think you can say a hive is a survivor if it's only a year old I would want to know your survival rate of each individual hive after three years, if after that period of time you have the same hive (not necessarily the same queen) then I would say you are onto something.

A question I have, is splitting a hive considered a treatment?


----------



## Solomon Parker

frazzledfozzle said:


> I dont think you can say a hive is a survivor if it's only a year old


I'm not going to tell you what to think. 



frazzledfozzle said:


> I would want to know your survival rate of each individual hive after three years,


I have one hive which will be nine years old in April. It has had the same queen or naturally superseded daughters the entire time. I have another hive which is the same at five years old in May.



frazzledfozzle said:


> if after that period of time you have the same hive (not necessarily the same queen)


If it's not the same queen or a naturally superseded daughter, it's not the same hive. That's what I think.



frazzledfozzle said:


> A question I have, is splitting a hive considered a treatment?


To whom? Only the Treatment-Free Beekeeping forum has a set definition of what is a treatment.

That being said, I do not practice splitting as a treatment. I practice splitting to get more hives.


----------



## sqkcrk

honeyshack said:


> If you want to go treatment free, then you need extra nucs to supplement your losses.


Which is also true if you don't go treatment free. Do you make your nucs in the Spring or in the Fall?


----------



## Gypsi

Specialkayme said:


> I have seriously considered doing that, lol . . .


I am doing that. And anywhere else that was left "wild" last summer and fall and hasn't been mowed yet. (property owners are legally required to mow but many do not, and their weeds seed our yards, so ooops, reverse seeding)


----------



## sqkcrk

Solomon Parker said:


> I practice splitting to get more hives.


Does doing so contribute to sustainability? Or simply growth? Are you only splitting colonies that have survived a number of winters?


----------



## Specialkayme

Solomon Parker said:


> If you're not willing to lose hives or try small cell, then I have nothing for you.


1. I never said I wasn't willing to lose hives. I did say I was tired of losing so many hives. Natural losses are a part of beekeeping. As long as there is something to be learned from above average losses, I take them as a learning opportunity. Where I have a problem is losing all or most of my hives without having the opportunity to replenish those hives in the future. My plan was to replenish with nucs. That didn't work out. Back to square one.

2. I don't understand your connection between my problem and small cell. This thread was moved to the diseases and pests section because it was all about dealing with varroa. There are plenty of threads that discuss the use of small cell, and many that talk about their uses for dealing with varroa. This has not been such a thread. This was more about dealing with varroa generally. Even still, in those threads about small cell, nearly all of them speak about how small cell is not the end all be all solution to varroa. Nearly every study I have read on small cell confirms the same. It is difficult for me to put blind faith into a "treatment" such as small cell when it flies in the face against other threads, articles, and studies. Not saying that I'm opposed to the idea, or that I have a problem with it, but I just don't see how it's a solution. 

But even if we were to assume that it was, I don't see how it solves my situation. I don't have hive numbers of sufficient size in which I can convert entirely to small cell, take the heavy losses, and replenish them myself. Not after I took the losses that I have. I don't have cash to buy into a yard full of SC hives. SC nucs are more expensive, and very difficult to find around here. Plus, mentally I'm still on the fence about the concept of adding ANY foundation to a hive, let alone SC.

That doesn't even get into the regression issues that would obviously be involved.

I just don't see how SC would solve my problem in the next three to five years.

I don't want to treat. But I don't have the money to re-buy in every year. So, it's going to end up being either figuring out a way to function today, or throw in the towel (and I really don't want to do that). How does SC help with that? If I get your plan, even if I switched to SC, based on my yard size (currently two) I'd have to re-buy in next year. I don't have enough funds to buy more than two right now, and that's a shot in the dark as to whether or not either survive next year (as some are suggesting a ~90% loss their first year). So still, I'd have to buy back in every year for the next three to five years. That spells game over, unless I treat.

I don't like it, but I just don't see any other way.


----------



## Oldtimer

Solomon Parker said:


> I was taking issue with your saying that it was a long and expensive process.


Just to refresh, by "it", you are referring to using small cell treatment free.

I would have to say that in Sol's case, it HAS been a long and expensive process even if he can't see that.

My reasoning is he started with 20 packages. Since then over the nine years, numerous splits have been made, swarms collected, and more bees in the form of nucs etc. purchased. After all that there remains something less than 20 hives.

IF all those bees had not been killed by mites or whatever is claimed to have killed them, Sol would now be the owner of a large number of hives. Probably several hundred. The fact he is not, means the process has been expensive. So the expense has maybe not been in laying out large sums of money, although there has been some of that. But the main cost, is what could have been, that hasn't.

"Success" is a subjective word. And I see it used a lot for situations that to me, would be a complete disaster. 

In two or three years from now I'll be able to post up the results of my honest investigation into treatment free small cell beekeeping. Next year I'll be making small cell nucs to replace any hives that die. I'll be keeping records of how many I make, how many get used, how many die, in order to maintain 5 small cell hives. Eventually I'll HOPEFULLY be able to say exactly what resources had to be used to maintain 5 small cell hives, and how somebody could go about doing that. I'll also be able to extrapolate what all that could have become, had the bees been treated.


----------



## frazzledfozzle

Oldtimer that will be a very interesting thread to read when it happens


----------



## Oldtimer

That's assuming there are ANY bees left to talk about LOL!


----------



## Solomon Parker

Specialkayme said:


> Back to square one.


Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying and think I'm trying to chastise you for doing things wrong. I'm not. But you're not back to square one. Those hives you have left are more valuable than the ones you started with. You don't have to crash again to bring small cell into the operation. I'd wager you'll lose fewer as time goes on. But it seems you're down past your last option to be treatment-free, and you refuse to try one last option which can keep you thus. I've been there. I was down to two after the winter of 2009. Those two are still alive today.



Oldtimer said:


> My reasoning is he started with 20 packages. Since then over the nine years, numerous splits have been made, swarms collected, and more bees in the form of nucs etc. purchased. After all that there remains something less than 20 hives.
> 
> Sol would now be the owner of a large number of hives. Probably several hundred.


Despite my being 100% honest and forthright, Alistair gratuitously refuses to assemble the facts into a coherent narrative on anything but his own terms.

I'll do it again. 20 packages purchased. 19 took. One split made to make up to 20. Caught one swarm, 21. Ran out of equipment, quit splitting, allowed hive numbers to dwindle as _*expected losses *_took their toll. Gifted one hive (large cell). Moved to Arkansas. Bought one nuc. Moved rest of hives to Arkansas, now numbering 4+gift. One died. One split. Winter of 2009, lost 3+gift leaving 1 from Oregon, and nuc bought in 2007. Bought three more nucs. 2 died. Caught two swarms. Bought 4 queens, one died. Caught two more swarms. Made splits of Oregon hive. High of 17 colonies early summer. Sold two nucs. Lost two in summer, lost two in the fall to robbing. Lost one in November. Have ten surviving the winter. 

Totals
Bought 20 packages, 6 nucs, 4 queens.
Caught 5 swarms.
Made less than a dozen splits.
Currently have ten hives.
Never had to re-buy-in.

How he comes up with "several hundred" is his fuzzy math.

The facts are that I have never lost it all, and my winter losses have declined precipitously since I set up shop in Arkansas as they did after initial crash in Oregon.

I have always been honest and forthright about my record.


----------



## Oldtimer

Edit - Double Post


----------



## Oldtimer

Solomon Parker said:


> Alistair gratuitously refuses to assemble the facts into a coherent narrative on anything but his own terms.


Funny, could have said the same about you Sol.

The several hundred is what would have happened if none had died, even by your own figures you have given.

You claim 20 packages bought, 5 swarms, possible dozen splits, 6 nucs purchased. Total = 43. If the 43 hives had prospered, just splitting them ONCE, would have brought you close to a hundred hives. Over 9 years, had your bees done well, you could EASILY now be the proud owner of several hundred hives.

However I do wonder about the numbers you have given. You have often mentioned loosing hives, for example you lost nearly all the packages. there have been other crashes, and then in the last post you mention in 2009 only two survived. All these losses you must have made up somehow. Are you sure that over the 9 years it's only been 6 nucs, 5 swarms, and 12 splits? Cos it doesn't work the way I do maths.


----------



## Solomon Parker

Winter 2009-2010, I was down to two hives. Bought three nucs, split once, two swarms = 8.

Winter 2010-2011, came out with 5. Four queens (into splits), two swarms = 11. Split one hive to 6 = 16. Split one in two = 17. Lost two in summer, lost two to robbing in fall, sold two, lost one in November = 10 which is what I now have.

Splits totaling 12 including the one in 2003. 2 nucs in 2008, one in 2007 for a total of 6. 20 packages purchased in 2003.

That's engineer math. What is it in Kiwi beekeeper math? 

I would have 43, not several hundred. Even if you magically double it twice, your claim still doesn't match.

However, you don't seem to be able to match my numbers treatment free. 10 surviving out of 43 is darn good odds without treatment and far better than any numbers I've seen from anybody going cold turkey. They're also better numbers than I was expecting when I started. That's my success and I stand by my record.

I'll even break it down in costs as well. 

20 packages from Koehnen at $32 = $640 (I may be exaggerating the cost, I remember it costing $635)
6 nucs from fat/beeman at $125 = $750 (those are current prices, I don't remember all the prices when I bought them.)
4 queens from Zia Queenbee at $28 = $112
Total = $1502
Yearly = $167 or about 2 packages today.
During that time I sold about $1100 of honey and $200 of nucs.

If you ever have trouble remembering any of this, it's now posted on a forum I don't have moderator rights to and you can refer back to it and know that I didn't change anything.  After a few days, I'll even lose the ability to edit it as a user, so you might want to check back and make sure I haven't. :lookout:


----------



## squarepeg

back to the rethinking my varroa plan....

last year's plan was no plan at all for me, i got lucky.

this year's plan will use a lot of what randy oliver has suggested.

to begin with i plan to put drone traps in all my hives. you can look up how dr. oliver does it. basically you take a frame and split it with foundation at the top, and leave it empty at the bottom for the bees to draw out drone comb. you check the drone brood for mites exactly four weeks later, and if they are heavy with mites you destroy the drone brood and comb and let them start over. you would then do an alcohol wash to see if further action is needed. (dr. oliver discusses his use of 'soft' treatments). if they are lite with mites, that might indicate some varroa resistance and you might leave those drones to mate and pass on the resistance.

i think dr. oliver was among the first in the commercial sphere to totally abandon the use of synthetic miticides. the concern being that the bees will build up resistance to them anyway, and that you get comb contamination.

as far as what mite count is acceptable, in his more recent papers he says that it varies with location, and doesn't give a specific number. that's for the individual to figure out with experience, trial, and error.

there's a lot to digest on scientificbeekeeping.com. i cheated, and started reading the more recent papers and worked my way back. it was interesting to me to see how the recommedations evolved with time.


----------



## Specialkayme

So, if the pissing contest is over, can we get back to the topic?


----------



## tefer2

LOLopcorn:


----------



## Oldtimer

Specialkayme said:


> So, if the pissing contest is over, can we get back to the topic?


OK well what's been demonstrated is that even the most expert, successful, treatment free beekeeper on the forum has suffered dramatic losses, based on the most recent numbers given. And his numbers are quote - "far better than any numbers I've seen from anybody going cold turkey". He must be the best.

So why should us common folks fare any better? 

While I'm trying treatment free / small cell, as an experiment, which started around a year ago, I'm also mindful that we use drugs / medicines on our other livestock, our pets, our children, and ourselves. It seems that just bees, have been singled out for a different philosophy by some. Is it working? Not based on what I'm reading.


----------



## Ted Kretschmann

Whether you are SC or LC, treatment free or treat, bees die. They die in greater numbers than many years ago.That is just the sorry truth of the industry anymore. When I was a young beekeeper bee loses where around 4 or 5 percent. If you lost more than that, you were considered a lousy beekeeper. Now 30% or even 50% is considered an acceptable loss. The 50% is reported from a friend of mine who runs only Russian stock and has a much bigger outfit than my own. They are pretty much treatment free. I treat and have some yards that have 30% losses this year. They will have to be split back starting the end of February. Then I have yards that have lost just a couple of hives. The management is the same for the operation across the board. My beekeeping friend reports aging queens being a major culprit in his losses. I suspect that when it is all said and done, there is some unknown culprit that has been killing the bees for many years now other than the ones we all know of, (including the fly and CCD), that has not been discovered. Too many hives die now for no real reason. Like the rest of farming ,we are all on "No Till management" But with beekeepers we just do not No till we get out in the bees what we have alive anymore with each visit to the apiary. TED


----------



## honeyshack

If i had to give more advice, i think I would say, "sit down and figure out your end game...." 
Honey production?
Bee production?
Survival?
Overall health
Bees just cause they are cute?

Once you have figured out your end game, then start with "a" and go to "z" an fill in the blanks on how to get there....set yourself up some goals and how to achieve them.

If treatment free is your goal, maybe you need a few years under your belt of treating to see what difference you can achieve and how lighter mite loads and as a result lighter disease and nosema loads can be of benifit to you and your hives. Then once that is achieved, start on a treatment free plan. Then when you run into trouble, you have your treating experience to fall back on in times of need

Just thinking out loud.
If you need some help setting up a treatment plan there are several who are close to your area who can help and mentor you in this way.


----------



## honeyshack

Ted Kretschmann said:


> I suspect that when it is all said and done, there is some unknown culprit that has been killing the bees for many years now other than the ones we all know of, (including the fly and CCD), that has not been discovered. Too many hives die now for no real reason. Like the rest of farming ,we are all on "No Till management"


There are two saying in livestock management of the 4 legged kind.
"if you are going to have livestock, you will have deadstock"...angus cowman
"I have always said if you ain't got them you can't lose them. 
and they can be very inventive in finding ways to die"....caustic bruno


----------



## Specialkayme

honeyshack said:


> "sit down and figure out your end game...."


Well, I don't really know if this is an end game or not, but I personally enjoy keeping bees for the entertainment, the challenge, the stress relief, and the innovation. Other than that, I would like, at some point, to get more into small time breeding and queen production. I never really thought about putting a time limit on it though. I just figured it would be a learning and a growing process. Once I was producing queens, and I had too many hives, that would probably be a good time to start to get into queen production for more than just myself.

Where that puts things in the way of a varroa plan, I couldn't tell you.

"a" to "z"? No clue.

Goals? Keeping them alive at the moment, without pouring chemicals down their throats.


----------



## Specialkayme

honeyshack said:


> If treatment free is your goal, maybe you need a few years under your belt of treating to see what difference you can achieve and how lighter mite loads and as a result lighter disease and nosema loads can be of benifit to you and your hives. Then once that is achieved, start on a treatment free plan. Then when you run into trouble, you have your treating experience to fall back on in times of need


For some reason, this strikes very true to me, and makes alot of sense.

I always assumed that the goal was to, at least at some point, be treatment free. If that was the case, treatments just prolonged the time in which you could make it to be treatment free, so what was the point? But perhaps if you can't keep them alive any other way . . .


----------



## Specialkayme

honeyshack said:


> If you need some help setting up a treatment plan there are several who are close to your area who can help and mentor you in this way.


Which also would help me.

I think the difficulty for me is every mentor I've met wanted to treat me like I was starting at day one. They wanted to point out which one was the queen, which ones were drones, what the equipment was, ect. I felt like I needed a fast forward button, quickly got bored, and figured it might be best to learn things on my own. Perhaps not.


----------



## honeyshack

Mentors like that are invaluable. The reason is, when it comes to the dirt hitting the pavement, they are going to teach you the reason why instead of "do it because my dad did it" etc. They are willing to teach you everything they know. And yes they start from scratch but it's all they know how to do it.
Take it with a grain of salt and then get ready for the good stuff. It's in the mundane you get to ask the questions. And that is the key...the questions!


----------



## honeyshack

Specialkayme said:


> ...I personally enjoy keeping bees for the entertainment, the challenge, the stress relief, and the innovation....
> Goals? *Keeping them alive at the moment*, without pouring chemicals down their throats.


You have started your goal plan. Keeping them alive is the goal. The reason why, cause you enjoy your bees.
Now you need the plan


----------



## rrussell6870

This is a quote from a response that I gave to a question about what a new breeder should work towards first... I agree that the first and most important thing to work towards is learning the bees... even if that means treating them, even if your goal is to keep bees in a treatment free manner... that should be a goal, and one can work towards that goal by learning what works and what doesn't by experience... its hard to swallow some notions that people have about the bond theory when they simply start keeping bees and when they die just blame it on weak genetics... its actually more likely that bee keeper error was the culprit, but since they haven't tried treating yet, they do not see the difference... not saying that is you Specialkay, I know you better than that, just saying that is one of the issues that gets people fired up... when someone works to become an expert of a field, they learn and work in all aspects of that field before settling into a specialty... bee keeping is no different... take Michael Bush and Michael Palmer for example... they both treated to start with, learned how to keep bees alive without so much concern of pests, then sought to find ways to keep them alive without treating... I was fortunate enough to have the resources to start treating when the need arose and promote the early stocks that didn't succumb back when the threats first arrived...

"""""""the first thing that I would suggest that a breeder select for is manageable and productive bees, even if treatments are required to get there... during that process the breeder will learn key factors such as when the threats are at their highest, which threats are most prolific, and what management practices are effective in not only keeping the bees producing heavy crops, but also which ones are helping them to manage the threats a little further each season... from this point, the breeder can begin to select for traits that benefit survival and he/she will be more apt to see the effects that each step in his/her selection process has made on honey/bee/wax production, as well as on survival with less need for treatments... through time the stock will be continually growing in its production ability and survivability... some people believe that bees either have a trait to survive a threat or do not... but most agree that this vigorous creature is adaptive and ever changing and the threats that they face today are simply an overwhelming burden that would never have happened in the natural order, so given the chance to face the threat on a lower level and survive the stresses that each threat presents, they will adapt to address the threat more efficiently and eventually defeat it altogether..."""""" . .


----------



## honeyshack

Specialkayme said:


> For some reason, this strikes very true to me, and makes alot of sense.
> 
> If that was the case, treatments just prolonged the time in which you could make it to be treatment free, so what was the point?


But in prolonging, you get to see what is going on, and how lower loads help the bees. Remember though, there is a learning curve with this too. It might take a couple of years to get it right....mostly cause you are learning from scratch, or rather a different vantage point. As in life there are no guarantees. IF they want to die, they will find a way. But beating your head against a wall with little or no results just gives one a headache.


----------



## Oldtimer

Specialkayme said:


> Goals? Keeping them alive at the moment, without pouring chemicals down their throats.


Well there was that thread run recently trying to find any treatment free commercial beekeepers, ie, people who make their living from the productivity of their bees. End result was there is one, Dee Lusby. And she uses africanised bees which are varroa resistant anyway. Other possibles were a couple of queen breeders who sell russians, or bees that are suspected of african influence.

So don't feel bad about treating. There is a lot of talk about being treatment free from people who don't live off their bees. If you want to breed and sell bees in a small time way, it's best to bite the bullet and go with a program that will enable the bees first to survive, and then secondly reproduce, so you can breed and sell a product. If you are breeding in a small way, you do not have the resources to do groundbreaking work in varroa resistance breakthroughs. Even that favorite supplier of small cell bees, Don the Fat Bee Man, treats.

To me, the worst two things about treatment are residual contamination of combs, and contamination of honey. If you can avoid those two things by using methods including such things as drone removal, non residual chemicals, etc, it's really no worse than what is considered routine in most other agricultural industries, ie, just management.

Most of my bees are what some people refer to as "chemical bees", that get "witches brew" rammed down their throats. Of course much of this type of talk is emotional claptrap, and will hold anybody back who really wants to succeed.


----------



## heaflaw

rrussell6870 said:


> most agree that this vigorous creature is adaptive and ever changing and the threats that they face today are simply an overwhelming burden that would never have happened in the natural order, so given the chance to face the threat on a lower level and survive the stresses that each threat presents, they will adapt to address the threat more efficiently and eventually defeat it altogether..."""""" . .


Poetry


----------



## David LaFerney

What Dr Russell is saying (If I understand him correctly) should be obvious - it's not of course, but it should be. Bees have mites, bees die, therefore the mites killed them. Really? 2 people both get flu - one of them is healthy, and in otherwise good health - the other one is malnutritioned and stressed by other normally non-lethal health issues. The healthy person gets well, the other person dies - did he simply die of flu? 

Beginners kill bees because they don't know how to keep bees healthy - not just because they treat or don't treat. And they often think that treatment free means don't do anything. Maybe we would be better off learning to be bee keepers first. Know any treatment free new bees that are still keeping bees after 3 years?

I over stressed my bees this year, and for the first time I lost some hives - fortunately only a few, but I've learned a lesson - I need to pay more attention to their overall health and nutrition. It took me three years to figure that out, now I have to learn how to do better.


----------



## rrussell6870

Hey heaflaw, that's my line! ;-)

David, you nailed it. The flu analogy was... well... poetry! Lol.


----------



## Specialkayme

honeyshack said:


> Now you need the plan


Lol, easier said than done.


----------



## Specialkayme

rrussell6870 said:


> ... I agree that the first and most important thing to work towards is learning the bees... even if that means treating them, even if your goal is to keep bees in a treatment free manner... that should be a goal, and one can work towards that goal by learning what works and what doesn't by experience...


Perhaps I've been looking at this incorrectly, but should the treatments you use now be dependent on what your overall goals are?

So inevitably, if my goal is to some day become treatment free, or only use natural treatments (not interested in getting into defining either of those at this point in time, lol), would that drive what treatments I use now? Or wouldn't it matter?

For instance. Lets say I do start treating. I go out and buy Apistan strips and treat twice a year (dependent on mite counts). Chemicals soak into the comb and it takes me even longer after I stop treatments to get to a treatment free or natural treatment regimen. Or does that make no sense?

I want to do what's best now, but I also want to make sure that I'm not shooting myself in the foot five to ten years from now.


----------



## Specialkayme

rrussell6870 said:


> ... its actually more likely that bee keeper error was the culprit, but since they haven't tried treating yet, they do not see the difference... not saying that is you Specialkay, I know you better than that, just saying that is one of the issues that gets people fired up...


No worries. 

I don't have any room for ego right now. I'm interested in fixing a problem.


----------



## Specialkayme

Oldtimer said:


> To me, the worst two things about treatment are residual contamination of combs, and contamination of honey. If you can avoid those two things by using methods including such things as drone removal, non residual chemicals, etc, it's really no worse than what is considered routine in most other agricultural industries, ie, just management.


Agreed. Contamination is one of my largest concern of treatments.

Looks like I'm going to have to read up on my different miticide options . . .


----------



## squarepeg

kay, just in case you and i cross-posted, did you see my post #61?


----------



## tefer2

Oxalic acid vapor gets my vote if I have to use anything.
Randy Oliver has some results to look at.


----------



## Gypsi

I like David LaFerney (sp) and Russell's approach, but I'm sticking with my diligent application of powdered sugar if I see a sticky board covered with mites. And possibly some feeding, depending upon flow. With the drought/dearth possibly hanging around until June, I still will have 2 hives to get to full strength before flow dries up and the scrounging begins..


----------



## rrussell6870

The plan needs to be based on what you expect your hives to produce, whether that be bees, nucs, honey, pollen, or wax... queen production brings in a new set of variables... if you wish to produce queens, selection criteria must be considered and the only way to select from colonies is to see what they do in other types of production... 

There is something to keep in mind when starting off with or without treatments... first there are some areas where mites are simply less or more virulent than other areas... this is one of the things that I mention often when I talk about "the area's mite population"... most people look at the mite populations within each particular hive only, with no concern about how the mites got there and where they came from... we did a small study on a yard that seemed to never shake its mite issues some time ago... after some digging, we located four colonies of bees living in different types of structures in the forest that surrounded the yard... these colonies were all within 5 miles of the yard and all seemed to be north/northeast of the yard... about 2 miles further in that same direction was a small apiary that ran about ten hives... while speaking with the bee keeper that owned those hives, he told us that he treats his hives every fall but not in the spring and that he did not do any type of swarm prevention because the swarming was his way of getting fresh queens and he had hoped that the swarms would become feral and repopulate the wild bees around his melon farm... 

We then watched the four colonies that were in the forest and sure enough, each one would die off and be repopulated by the next swarm the following spring... so we took it a step further by dusting the bees in the four colonies with blue powder... then we went to the fields that our bees were working and watched the blooms... there we saw blue bees and clean bees working side by side, crawling all over each other and even witnessed the clean bees trying to groom the blue bees... that's where the mites were coming from... 

So we decided to treat the four colonies and see if the mites in our hives continued to persist... they did not... and the four colonies did not die out that year... the next year, there were six more new swarm colonies in the forest... 

So you see that there is a path that mites must follow to get to your hives in the first place... in areas where there is no path, there is no need to continue treatments as low mite counts can be kept low by basic resistances...


----------



## Gypsi

very good info Russell!


----------



## squarepeg

yeah doc, that's very cool. part of my evolving approach wil be to remove to another yard any weak/infested hives that are being robbed by the healthy ones.


----------



## JD's Bees

Just to add to Russells post. It is important to keep in touch with others who keep hives near yours. Mite treatments are more effective if everyone treats at the same time. Also if someone is having mite resistance to a certain product it would help you to know that in advance and be able to plan accordingly.


----------



## honeyshack

I read in a previous post on this thread about OA. OA is a good product as part of an IPM strategy. However, OA is used mostly when the hive is broodless. Since the winter bees are already grown when this is used, it might not really take care of the wintering problem. If the mite load is too high in August, an October dribble or vapouring will kill the mites but winter losses will still happen because the bees are already damaged goods.
OA is good post treatment, for example, after formic was used to reduce mites early on, to clean up what is left.

One of the tricks to a sucessful, not guaranteed, but successful overwintering is good mite control in August when the queen starts to lay her winter bees. This has been identified as a critical time to ensure low mite counts. The problem with this time frame is, honey is still being collected. 
So, what other critical time do we have left? The next equally critical time is just before they kick it into high gear for spring build up. For some areas this would be febuary, march or april This time frame is critical because it is just before the the queen starts to lay the summer forage bees. Here is when the mites should be brought to their knees so to speak. A real good clean up. Knocked back to below 1%. This ensures a good strong workforce for the summer. It should be noted here that this is when the "stronger or lengther" mite treatment should be applied. A one day or one week treatment will see mites spike in June July or August because they will bounce back quicker. Please note that monitoring should be done throughout the spring and summer to keep an eye on mite levels.
Also is key to a relatively low mite count in August, is if the beekeeper keeps the drone production in check with uncapping drones in the hive. Not all cause you need some to incase of a supercedure...there is a fine line here. As a hobbiest, a couple of well timed sugar dustings mite be good just prior to honey supering to help reduce the loads depending on the type of treatment which was used in the spring. I will be honest here, in the spring i use a 45 day treatment product which has no resistance. For us in Canada with our longer build up times and short flow time and long winter this works well. For those who have several flows a year, other products might be easier to use but, watch those mite loads between the flows and look at ways to reduce them.
A broodles periond works if you have multiple flows over the course of the year. But in areas where you only flow is 6 weeks long, the loss of the foragers for that one and only flow are costly. So, look at your area and chart your flows and dearths and see where you can work in your treatments.
So if everything is done by the book and if the mites have been monitored throughout the summer, by mid August the mite count might be near 2%, maybe three. Timing is everything here. Test a bit late and that count can move up quickly. At the point of the final supers coming off, that is when the next treatment should be applied. Since the beekeeper has kept the mites down though out the summer, this treatment should be considered a clean up treatment in preperation for winter. This is where the one day or one week treatments should be given careful consideration and then check and see if an OA is needed as a follow up.

A few things should be mentioned here. Nosema is a stressor disease. Keep it in check and life will get better.
Trachea mites. Ok, there is talk out there that the bees are resistant to trachea mites. But still watch out of them. For me, they are a problem so what ever treatment i apply, trachea has to be apart of it in the fall.
As well, I know nothing of almond preperations of hives. So, what i am talking about applies to honey producing hive and hives produced for reproduction or queen rearing.

Remember, mites are a constant battle throughout the year. Monitoring has to be done. Simple technics like using the uncapping fork to check for mites in the summer when uncapping drones is essential. It will not give you the numbers or if your hive is ripe for the picking, but it will give you an idea if they are there and if you need to check more closely with a wash or drop method.

Keep in mind. When mites are knocked back to below 1% in the spring it will take them a good long while to start to climb in numbers. But once they reach 2-3%, look out they will spike or double in less than 3 weeks...keep this in mind when monitoring.

Finally, one of the things i remember from my mentor. "Decide what you want. A fall honey flow, or live bees in the spring. You can not have both."


----------



## AstroBee

Specialkayme,

Real sorry to hear of the troubles that you've had. There have been some real nuggets of information brought out in this thread. I don't believe that you're likely to find a local mentor that can come close to some of the generous and knowledgeable folks who contribute here. I particularly appreciate the contributions made by Russell, Oldtimer, and honeyshack. Perhaps you can go back and reread those particular contributions a second time, as, I believe, that these guys really get it. They have the knowledge, experience, and willingness to share it with others. I've been keeping bees for 11 years and started out as purely a hobbyist mostly because of the fascination. Since, I've grown to the point where most would consider me as a sideliner. My first fall 11 years ago, I stuffed apistan strips into my hives just because that's what the books told me to do. That was the first and last time I used "harsh" chems in my colonies. Apistan was extremely effective, and the following spring I had far more bees than skill. However, as my knowledge increased, I came to the realization that apistan simply wasn't consistent with how I wanted to proceed. With that said, I am not in the "just let them die" crowd, and am highly skeptical of many of the claims made about small cell (I really look forward to reading about Oldtimer's SC study). I have and still use some of the approved softer treatments available (tried a limited amount of MAQS this past fall and believe that it warrants more consideration this coming season). I personally believe that management practices (at least in my area) are on par with any known treatment regime available. The brood cycle and mite buildup are inherently linked and with the proper technique can be used to throttle the mite buildup. Of course there are many tools necessary, and brood management is just one. Good stock is essential, comb rotation, SBB, a well trained eye (read experience), and timing of most actions are also essential. 

Save your pennies and jump back into it this spring. Your contributions to our community are quite valuable!!


----------



## Specialkayme

honeyshack said:


> "Decide what you want. A fall honey flow, or live bees in the spring. You can not have both."


No issue here. We don't have a fall flow  Not one where you can take anything back, at least.


----------



## Specialkayme

AstroBee said:


> Real sorry to hear of the troubles that you've had.
> 
> Save your pennies and jump back into it this spring. Your contributions to our community are quite valuable!!


Thanks Astro.

I'm doing my best to jump back in. Last I checked, I had two hives still alive. Not sure how many of those will make it through the winter. But I did place a nuc order with Russell, so that will help. I also have a few queens ordered from him. I placed the queen order before I lost my nucs, so I have more queens coming than I have splits to put them in . . . but I'll deal with that when the time comes.


----------



## Specialkayme

After evaluating my goals, and reading up on the different types of treatments, here is what I'm thinking about my plan. Tell me what you guys think.

Since the next few years will be geared toward building up my hive numbers, building up nucs, and honing in on my queen rearing skills, I'd like to have strong numbers come spring. My wife has gotten hooked on that liquid gold, and Tulip Poplar is our only flow. So for that reason, I would like to leave a few hives to just collect honey. Since that is an early flow, it may work that I can make my honey hives also my drone producers . . . but we'll get there later.

I want to start with softer treatments. I'd prefer not to dive into the harsh miticides just yet.

Early spring, before brood rearing really kicks in, I was thinking about using some Hop Guard. Since it doesn't penetrate the cappings, and only gets the bees roaming around, I figured it would be a good start to the season, making sure mite counts are low to start. From there, I would take monthly alcohol wash or sugar roll testings, to see where mite levels are. If I need to knock them back, I can consider it. 

By August, hit them with MAQS. Since it works for mites that are on bees that are pupating, it kicks back the bees on a large scale. It also works on tracheal mites and nosema. By August would ensure that my mite counts are low enough that I can get one or two more rounds of brood before shut down occurs, enabling them to go into winter with healthy bees.

How does this sound?


----------



## arcowandbeegirl

I am only a second year beekeeper, but I think you are on the right track. This year I am going to try the drone trapping using the method by Mr. Oliver. This makes good sense to me, and I am eager to try it. Last year I tried the plastic drone frames, but my bees didnt want to draw them out. I did powdered sugar dust, but the Oliver website has a much simpler way to do it. Best of luck to you all!! Thanks for all the great info you all have posted!


----------



## Oldtimer

Sounds good Specialkayme.

Running some honey hives is good, might I suggest also that if increase is the goal, nucs feel a need to build up quickly, if it's the right time of year and flow. But go bigger than two frame so they are not struggling. It seems to me also that your job is made a lot harder by your flow and dearth pattern. Very hard to get bees cracking during a dearth. If you can find a site near a residential suburb, there are more and longer flows where people have gardens.

A good site, makes even more difference than good beekeeping.

Re the hop guard, I read someone saying they put a new batch in the hive each week for three weeks, to catch the full brood cycle. Sounded like a good idea.

I've never used MAQS, but use the base ingredient, formic acid. It can really be effective, but be aware of the downsides. If you have a broodless period in winter you should also consider oxalic acid, as a vapor. Cheap, quick, and effective.


----------



## Specialkayme

Oldtimer said:


> might I suggest also that if increase is the goal, nucs feel a need to build up quickly, if it's the right time of year and flow.


That is in large part why I made so many last year. New plan this year though. I'm not planning on going smaller than four frames. That way I figure they will be able to defend themselves sufficiently in a dearth or robbing situation.


----------



## Specialkayme

Oldtimer said:


> It seems to me also that your job is made a lot harder by your flow and dearth pattern. Very hard to get bees cracking during a dearth.


Amen brother!

I have a farmer that allows me to keep bees on his land, about an hour away from me. I've kept bees in two separate regions of Greensboro, and I've had them in Raleigh for a period of time. Sad to say the whole central region of the state (otherwise known as the Piedmont) is very much the same. I've heard those in the Mountain Region (western NC) and costal Carolina (Eastern NC) fare much better. Unfortunately it can be a good 3-4 hour drive to get into those areas, so I can't exactly commute to those yards. And my job is very much fixated here :/

Just going to have to do the best I can . . . and perhaps plant a crud ton of ball clover on "abandoned" land, lol.


----------



## Specialkayme

Oldtimer said:


> I've never used MAQS, but use the base ingredient, formic acid. It can really be effective, but be aware of the downsides. If you have a broodless period in winter you should also consider oxalic acid, as a vapor. Cheap, quick, and effective.


I havn't really read too many downsides to MAQS, or formic acid. Still reading though.

I've considered the oxalic acid, and was considering using it instead of Hop Guard, but the jury is still out on that one. I've heard Formic Acid and Hop Guard is much more effective than oxalic acid . . . or am I mixing up my treatments already . . .


----------



## honeyshack

Hey specialkayme,
Sounds good! I agree with oldtimer about the number of times with hopguard. Just follow the directions. The spring key is to get the best kill possible and over a whole brood cycle is good.
Formic is good. There are two draw backs but they can be worked around....Temps and high mite loads. High loads and formic are a challenge. Might need some extra help.
That said, I have never used hopguard yet and MAQS is next on my list to try. 
Formic is good on disinfecting the hive which is a good thing as well as trachea mites...which is good
Remember, this will take some time to work out
As for the monthly alcohol wash, a little over kill unless a problem is showing up. Math is much simpler. If you have a 1% infestation in the weeks it will be two, in three more weeks it will be 4%. The trick is, on which side of the brood cycle are you one? The top half or the lower half of days.
HS


----------



## Charlie B

In the Bay Area here some beekeepers are using only one MAQS strip instead of the recommended two per box by August 15th. It seems to be working. Some have had "overkill" with two strips sometimes even killing the queen but it seems to be working with one so far.


----------



## honeyshack

That could be due to the number of frames of bees and possibly being close to the high temps for treating. With the mite away 2 it had to be a minimum of 5 good frames of bees


----------



## Charlie B

honeyshack said:


> That could be due to the number of frames of bees and possibly being close to the high temps for treating. With the mite away 2 it had to be a minimum of 5 good frames of bees


There were 8 to 10 solid frames of bees in each box but the temps in some cases were high 80's to low 90's in the cases I'm aware of. Anyway, no problems with one strip. We'll see how the hives are doing in the spring and do mite counts.


----------



## honeyshack

http://www.miteaway.com/pictogram_brochure_Rev_04-11.pdf


Everyone who uses MAQS should download this pdf file


----------



## camero7

I'm going to try the Mitegone pads this spring. Cheaper than the MAQS and easier to control the dose of formic put on the hive. Also can be used for nucs and the MAQS are not recommended for nucs.


----------



## Specialkayme

Never heard of Mitegone pads before


----------



## camero7

http://www.mitegone.com/


----------



## tefer2

They just sell the pads, you buy the formic yourself locally! Now, where wouild you look for it?


----------



## camero7

Best place I've found so far. Still looking. I can get it locally in 55 gal drums but I'm not that big.
http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query=formic&affiliate_pro_tracking_id=17:26:US


----------



## Vance G

Have you tried your local pharmacy? They have access to lots of stuff.


----------



## tefer2

camero7 said:


> Best place I've found so far. Still looking. I can get it locally in 55 gal drums but I'm not that big.
> http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query=formic&affiliate_pro_tracking_id=17:26:US


95% from them, would need to mix to 65% to apply. Seems it would be easier to just buy pre- mixed pads.


----------



## camero7

Vance G said:


> Have you tried your local pharmacy? They have access to lots of stuff.


they don't have it in quantity.


----------



## camero7

tefer2 said:


> 95% from them, would need to mix to 65% to apply. Seems it would be easier to just buy pre- mixed pads.


no one sells them... but the MAQS are formic too. If you're looking for easy instead of cheaper


----------



## Michael Palmer

Cam, FW Jones and son Ltd in Bedford Quebec sells it to Vermont beekeepers. I believe they may ship it to Highgate Vermont for US pickup.


----------



## camero7

Thanks very much Mike


----------



## heaflaw

rrussell6870 said:


> There is something to keep in mind when starting off with or without treatments... first there are some areas where mites are simply less or more virulent than other areas... this is one of the things that I mention often when I talk about "the area's mite population"....


I haven't needed to treat for varroa in 7 or 8 years. When I asked Dave Tarpy, the top bee guy at NC State why that was, he answered the same as RR did. It probably has as much to do with the genetics of the mites in my area than the genetics of the bees. If I moved my bees to an area where there were Keepers who had to treat a lot, my bees would probably be overcome with varroa and die out.

SK, maybe that is a large part of your problem.


----------



## Specialkayme

The more I read the more scared I get . . . 

MAQS users report a 20-40% queen kill and some brood kill. No thanks, not interested.

Oxalic Acid requires taking wood treatment acid (I believe), attaching something to a car battery, and sealing up the hive. Am I the only one that it seems a little odd to?

Essential oils sound promising, but I'm aware that it won't be able to be used at all times . . .

HopGuard also sounds promising, but it only affects mites outside of cells. I've heard of some using multiple treatments to kill other mites, but that nearly triples the cost of application . . .

Harsh Chemicals are out, no residue in combs please . . .


So now it is looking like essential oils with HopGuard, but still thinking . . .


----------



## Gypsi

I am not planning on many hives, so I am planning on sticking with my powdered sugar dusting. And my nucs will have hygenic queens. (VSH)

Hopguard was the treatment I was most interested in if I was going to use a chemical treatment.


----------



## Charlie B

Gypsi said:


> I am not planning on many hives,


I have a feeling that you will end up having more hives than rescue animals once you get going.


----------



## Specialkayme

Gypsi said:


> I am planning on sticking with my powdered sugar dusting.


I don't really see how powdered sugar dusting isn't considered as invasive as it really is. In reality, there are plenty of chemicals and pesticides used in the production of powdered sugar, unless you get untreated organic powdered sugar, and I'm not aware that such a product is sold around here. But even apart from that, you pour a powder that coats everything in the hive, gets in some cells, and hides in crevices. It takes bees quite some time to clean it all up. Who knows what it does to the internal ph of the hive or the pheromones. 

While I can see the advantages over "heavy chemicals," the benefits are marginal at best to other soft treatments, at least in my mind.


----------



## MethowKraig

arcowandbeegirl said:


> Last year I tried the plastic drone frames, but my bees didnt want to draw them out.


To get bees to accept plastic, be sure and spray with sugar syrup. This is not just for frames but any plastic device, such as a Nicot cage, etc.


----------



## squarepeg

>Last year I tried the plastic drone frames, but my bees didnt want to draw them out

i'm going to try randy oliver's version of a drone trap, they draw out the drone cells naturally.


----------



## sqkcrk

MethowKraig said:


> To get bees to accept plastic, be sure and spray with sugar syrup. This is not just for frames but any plastic.


To get plastic foundation drawn paint the foundation w/ wax.


----------



## David LaFerney

Specialkayme said:


> The more I read the more scared I get . . .
> 
> MAQS users report a 20-40% queen kill and some brood kill. No thanks, not interested.
> 
> Oxalic Acid requires taking wood treatment acid (I believe), attaching something to a car battery, and sealing up the hive. Am I the only one that it seems a little odd to?
> 
> Essential oils sound promising, but I'm aware that it won't be able to be used at all times . . .
> 
> HopGuard also sounds promising, but it only affects mites outside of cells. I've heard of some using multiple treatments to kill other mites, but that nearly triples the cost of application . . .
> 
> Harsh Chemicals are out, no residue in combs plea


The thing is once you rule out harsh, expensive, routine hive loss, and inconvenient you are pretty much left with only 2 options - wishful thinking, and get another hobby. The choice is between the lesser of evils. I'm sure you realize that.


----------



## Charlie B

Specialkayme said:


> I don't really see how powdered sugar dusting isn't considered as invasive as it really is. In reality, there are plenty of chemicals and pesticides used in the production of powdered sugar


Well then by that definition, it's invasive to feed bees sugar syrup from white granulated sugar due to the chemical process used. Where does it end?


----------



## AstroBee

Specialkayme,

Let's assume for a moment that the reported MAQS queens losses are factual and not related to improper technique (we can start another thread to replay those issues). So, why not strategically make your colonies queenless and while queenless apply MAQS (can't loose what's not present), and any potential brood loss will likely not have a big impact if timed properly. After the application period make them queenright again and they can proceed to build back as mite-free as possible. Sure this would be tough for someone running 100 colonies, but for your situation, this may be a reasonable solution.


----------



## Gypsi

Charlie B said:


> I have a feeling that you will end up having more hives than rescue animals once you get going.


well I'm sitting at 6 rescue animals if we don't count the fish... hmmmm


----------



## Specialkayme

David LaFerney said:


> The choice is between the lesser of evils. I'm sure you realize that.


I do. Still trying to figure out what that lesser is.


----------



## Specialkayme

Charlie B said:


> Well then by that definition, it's invasive to feed bees sugar syrup from white granulated sugar due to the chemical process used.


Agreed.

With sugar feeding, I only do it because I don't have an alternative. If I could feed them back honey, I will. But I often don't have enough. So it's either sugar feeding, or they die.

Sugar dusting isn't the same. You have alternatives.


----------



## Specialkayme

AstroBee said:


> So, why not strategically make your colonies queenless and while queenless apply MAQS (can't loose what's not present), and any potential brood loss will likely not have a big impact if timed properly.


I suggested this in another thread. I didn't get any responses.

But, MAQS is designed to be applied to a strong, or very strong deep body. I run mediums. So it could work on a double medium. What do I do for a single medium? Or a nuc? If you are getting bee deaths and brood kill from a single deep, you'll fry the bees in a single medium, I would suggest.

Plus, the temp range isn't very supportive of a southern location. I could really only treat in VERY early spring, or VERY late fall. Late fall is too late, early spring might be too early.


----------



## AstroBee

The MAQS data sheet says it can be applied between 92-50F. 

GREENSBORO-WNSTN-SALM-HGHPT, NC 47.2 51.7 60.3 69.7 76.9 83.8 87.6 85.7 79.4 69.6 59.9 50.6 avg highs
----------------------------------------------29 33 39 47 56 65 69 68 61 49 40 32 avg lows 

Temps are from Jan to Dec calculated from 1971-2000

Based upon the avg. temp data alone you could apply it as early as April and as late as October. Of course these are averages, but a decent 7 day period is all you need.


----------



## Charlie B

Specialkayme said:


> Sugar dusting isn't the same. You have alternatives.


It's the same in my opinion. After watching literally hundreds of mites fall off after dusting, I feel that if I don't dust, they'll die. I don't want to use MAQS or Hopguard. I don't feel those are alternatives because mites can build up a resistance to those chems. They can't build resistance to slipping on powdered sugar.


----------



## Gypsi

The acquired resistance factor is valid, in my honest opinion, and part of my sugar-dusting choice. Now if I roll the queen during dusting, the queen could die. But that's my clumsiness, and mine to remedy by re-queening.


----------



## Specialkayme

AstroBee said:


> Based upon the avg. temp data alone you could apply it as early as April and as late as October.


I can't really read your chart, and don't understand if those are only for a certain time frame, or all of the year.

But regardless, I've read once you start treating in the upper end of that spectrum (above 75) the bee deaths start hitting hard. I don't know, I haven't used it myself. But it's hard to find a day that couldn't (potentially) be at or above 75 after April or before October. Those really arn't key treatment times around here.


----------



## Specialkayme

Charlie B said:


> I _*feel*_ that if I don't dust, they'll die.


One key word of that sentence.



Charlie B said:


> I don't want to use MAQS or Hopguard. I don't feel those are alternatives because mites can build up a resistance to those chems. They can't build resistance to slipping on powdered sugar.


Mites have shown no potential for resistance to those "chemicals." They are actually acids. But that's a different issue. If your concern is over resistance, powdered sugar shows no advantages to MAQS or HopGuard.


----------



## Oldtimer

Just some info in that regard, it is near enough impossible that varroa will become resistant to formic acid (which is in MAQS) any time soon. 

The reason for that, is the mode of action. The formic acid vapor circulates in the hive, and reacts with anything it touches. This includes the bees, but except for immature and just hatched larvae their shells are too thick for serious damage. 

But the mites are a lot smaller. And the weak point for them is their blood sucking proboscus, which is extremely thin. The formic acid dissolves or at least weakens the proboscus, and the mite starves. The other weak point for them is the tips of their feet.

There are other things formic acid does too, but those are important ones.

It would take some major design changes for the mites to be able to combat this, and anyway, the needed design changes would require the mite to be less functional, possibly to the point it couldn't survive anyway.

So from that perspective, it's all good news.


----------



## AstroBee

Specialkayme said:


> I can't really read your chart, and don't understand if those are only for a certain time frame, or all of the year.


Sorry, it was a pretty lame attempt on my part to create an ascii table....won't try that again.
The two lines are avg. max and avg min temps throughout the year for your location. Each row has 12 entries corresponding to the months, starting from January. So, to find the avg max and min for May, you'd count over five columns and see that the avg max is 76.9 and avg min is 56.


----------



## Specialkayme

Ah, makes more sense now.

Well it's good to know that I can continue to treat up through (at least part of) May without many issues, assuming those issues come up when temps are above 75F. That should get me a good spring treatment 

But, I wouldn't be able to treat between June and September. October is a little too late to apply a late summer/fall treatment, so I'm going to have to figure out a different option for that treatment.

I'm also going to have to figure out a treatment plan for nucs and weaker hives, as MAQS isn't really designed for that. Still looking at the alternatives of Oxalic Acid and HopGuard for that . . .


----------



## Charlie B

Oldtimer said:


> And the weak point for them is their blood sucking proboscus, which is extremely thin. The formic acid dissolves or at least weakens the proboscus, and the mite starves. The other weak point for them is the tips of their feet.
> It would take some major design changes for the mites to be able to combat this, and anyway, the needed design changes would require the mite to be less functional, possibly to the point it couldn't survive anyway.
> So from that perspective, it's all good news.


Thanks for sharing Oldtimer and SpecialKayMe. It just goes to show me I don't know what I don't know. That's why I love this forum. Like I said in an earlier post, folks here are using one MAQS strip instead of two with no fatalities and it looks promising. I may start using MAQS this year depending upon mite count. 

I've seen the most stubborn steadfast "No treatment" beekeepers breakdown and use MAQS because the hive loss is just to much to bare.


----------



## Kieck

> Just some info in that regard, it is near enough impossible that varroa will become resistant to formic acid (which is in MAQS) any time soon. -Oldtimer


This myth keeps coming up. I don't buy it. The idea behind this myth is that resistance can only occur in response to neurotoxic chemicals. Certainly not true. Evolution can work around all sorts of selective pressures.



> The reason for that, is the mode of action. -Oldtimer


No, not really. Ever tried swatting a mosquito? If you manage to hit it, it's crushed. However, they have evolved to sense air movements that precede possible crushing, and will usually try to evade your descending hand (that is, they fly away if possible). Swatting is mechanical, yet a mechanism for "resistance" exists. Other mechanisms for the same do, too. Ever tried swatting a tick? They don't use evasive tactics, but they're not so easy to crush.

As far as acids go, any number of creatures (parasites in particular) have evolved mechanisms to cope with highly acidic environments.

Sticking with any one type of treatment for a great number of years, or having almost all of the population exposed repeatedly to a form of treatment is a recipe for resistance to develop in that population. The form of the treatment is less important the prevalence and duration of its use.


----------



## Oldtimer

Kieck your logic is good, and I'll agree with you to a point.

Just remember though evolution is not the answer to everything. Because evolutionary history is loaded with extinctions. IE, something came up that a species was not able to adapt to. So they died.

I also think formic acid will probably not become the main mite control method for many beekeepers, because of the associated problems such as queen loss. That was the problem with Apistan, for some years it was about the only thing many people used. That, greatly lessened the time frame needed for resistance to occur.

But end of the day, you may be right. Perhaps if we could come back in 200 years, we would know if mites had developed resistance to FA. But my personal belief is, that the mite problem will be solved by then, either by breeding a bee that can cope, or some other means we haven't even thought of yet.

That's if the planet is still here LOL


----------



## Kieck

Evolutionary history is loaded with extinctions. By definition, each species will become extinct. No species persists forever. Each species has gone extinct or will go extinct in the future. It's a fact of life, just as each individual dies.

That doesn't change the point that species can and do adapt to all sorts of selective pressures. I keep hearing and reading the mantra that, "Mites [or fill in whichever pest you'd like] can't develop resistance to something that isn't chemical." Sometimes it's mechanical damage, sometimes it's cultural change, sometimes it's something else. The fact is, _Varroa_ already made a big evolutionary change -- they managed to shift from one host to another. And that's not building a tolerance to a chemical.

My real point here isn't that a person should or should not use a treatment like this. My real point is that citing something that's false as a reason for using such a product is not a fair assessment of the reasons for or against using that product.


----------



## Oldtimer

Yes, well I agree with nearly all of that. 

Just, it's a little rich to call what I said "false". Because I didn't say resistance would never happen. (although maybe it never will). What I said was QUOTE - "Just some info in that regard, it is *near enough impossible* that varroa will become resistant to formic acid (which is in MAQS) *any time soon*". 

I believe that statement, with that disclaimer, is highly likely to prove correct. But can I prove it? No. Some time in the future, we'll know.


----------



## Kieck

OK, fair enough, Oldtimer. I take "near enough impossible" as a pretty extreme statement, though. Who would logically expect a creature like a plant-feeding mite to overcome a mechanical trait like really hairy leaves on a host plant "any time soon?" That one was done in trying to breed "resistant" wheat to wheat curl mites. Turns out, it took less than 8 generations for the mites to overcome the resistance. Eight generations of those mites is about 60 days.

And _Varroa_, according to reports I've read, have already shown an ability to develop resistance to some pretty potent chemicals in a relatively short period of time.


----------



## Oldtimer

Well 8 generations would be an adaptation, rather than evolution. I'll bet that mite species had already encountered a hairy plant at some time in their past, and had the genetic material available for use if needed.

Anyhow, I do see your points.


----------



## Specialkayme

Kieck said:


> This myth keeps coming up. I don't buy it. The idea behind this myth is that resistance can only occur in response to neurotoxic chemicals. Certainly not true. Evolution can work around all sorts of selective pressures.


By that theory a mite is just as likely to evolve to make a harder mouth and resist formic acid treatments as it is to evolve better legs to grip with and resist sugar dusting treatments.


----------



## Gypsi

Ok, I'll bite. When you have a treatment (any treatment) that is 100% successful for all members of the selected species, there is no evolved resistance.

Got a bunch of sick fish, parasite immune to all available treatments over the holidays in Dec 2010. Wasn't immune to being dunked in saltwater. Reverse is true for freshwater dips on saltwater fish. 

Trouble is every once in awhile you lose the patient to the treatment.


----------



## Kieck

> Well 8 generations would be an adaptation, rather than evolution. -Oldtimer


As an evolutionary biologist, I fail to see where this distinction lies? I believe you may be confusing "speciation" and "evolution," which are distinct concepts.



> When you have a treatment (any treatment) that is 100% successful for all members of the selected species, there is no evolved resistance. -Gypsi


Right. That's where "extinction" comes in. However, finding a treatment that kills all individuals of the target pest is so difficult that it's hardly worth mentioning. As you point out, such a treatment is likely to cause extinction of the "patient" as well. Certainly the treatments mentioned here are not completely effective; if they were, beekeepers could treat once and be done with treating again unless more mites recolonized the bee colony.



> By that theory a mite is just as likely to evolve to make a harder mouth and resist formic acid treatments as it is to evolve better legs to grip with and resist sugar dusting treatments. -Specialkayme


Correct. Again, this state that it will happen, but some probability of such a thing does exist. And that probability is likely not significantly different than the probability that mites will develop resistance to a particular neurotoxin.


----------



## Oldtimer

Oldtimer said:


> Well 8 generations would be an adaptation, rather than evolution.





Kieck said:


> As an evolutionary biologist, I fail to see where this distinction lies? I believe you may be confusing "speciation" and "evolution," which are distinct concepts.


Well interested to hear you are an evolutionary biologist Kieck, and I'll certainly be adding more weight to what you have to say on certain topics, great to have experts in various feilds on the forum. 

However, The above concept is fairly straight forward, one does not have to be an evolutionary biologist to understand it. Even us common folks can grasp it.

An example of adaptation that took place is in England during the industrial revolution. There was a moth that lived on silver birch trees. The moths were mostly white, but there were a few black specimens. When the industrial revolution got started, pollution from coal turned the silver birch trees black, making the white moths stand out to predatores such as birds, and the black moths were more camoflaged. So the moth population turned mostly black as the white ones were eaten. Years later the English government had to act to curb pollution, and the trees became clean and white again. Now it was the black moths that stood out and the moth population turned back to predominantly white.

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but to me, because those black and white genes already existed in the moth population, allowing for change as external conditions favored on or the other, it was not evolution, just adaptation by the species to various conditions.

Evolution would be when some completely new mutation happened that by chance was favorable to a new set of circumstances, allowing a better adapted animal, that is genetically different to it's forebears.

The odds of being able to repeatedly produce a particular new mutation in a mite species, within 8 generations, in a lab, are remote. So I'm picking it was variation within the species, that already existed genetically. IE, the mites had already been exposed to "hairy" plants at some time in their past, and had genes available to cope with that.


----------



## Kieck

> The above concept is fairly straight forward, one does not have to be an evolutionary biologist to understand it. Even us common folks can grasp it. Oldtimer


In my experience, "evolution" has been twisted in definition until connotations that some people find frightening or distasteful overwhelm the real definition.

"Evolution" is change over time. In one sense, it's change in genetics over time. Without mutation, evolution certainly wouldn't exist (all variation necessarily arose through mutation at some point; whether or not that mutation persists in the population is another matter). So, the example you cite of the moths in Europe evolved to better match their surroundings not once, but twice. They could do it again. The fact that both black and white moths existed before the change doesn't negate the change in the population, and the fact that both exist still today doesn't invalidate that a change took place. Given enough time, either form could have theoretically become "fixed" (meaning the other form would not exist in any meaningful way), or both could have existed in different habitats and maybe even become so distinct over time as to become separate species. Again, evolution can occur without speciation occurring. Speciation cannot occur without evolution.

When radical events occur to drive evolution rapidly, the mutations that allow some individuals to survive or thrive or simply outcompete their competitors almost always exist in the population before the event. If such variation from mutations does not exist before such an event, the population is likely to be exterminated by that event.


----------



## Oldtimer

OK well if you say that's the definition, I'll have to accept it. I would have to say though that I'm rather surprised that just any change within a species, even one driven by pre existing genes, can be called evolution.


----------



## windfall

"Correct. Again, this state that it will happen, but some probability of such a thing does exist. And that probability is likely not significantly different than the probability that mites will develop resistance to a particular neurotoxin. " Kieck

I would think accurately assessing the probability/speed of adaptive resistance to various treatments would be difficult. 

I believe the probability would ultimately depend on how many separate mutations would be required in combination to overcome the obstacle, perhaps just one or perhaps quite a few. Then you need to know the prevalence of those mutations in the existing populations and if they are in any way linked to each other or to some other trait which might nullify the advantage. It gets complicated pretty quick and at our current level of understanding genetics and molecular biology there are lots of "surprises"

The situation is somewhat simplified when the event is radical (as in a particularly "potent" treatment). Then, as Kieck points out, the mutations must not only already exist but also be combined into a resistant trait in a breeding individual to allow survival....but then there is partial resistance, and again it gets complicated.


----------



## Kieck

> I would think accurately assessing the probability/speed of adaptive resistance to various treatments would be difficult. -windfall


I agree. Maybe downright impossible. The point here isn't that the odds of one happening are "x," while the odds of another happening are "y," and "x" is much greater/less than "y." The point is that both are probably similarly likely, given our current understanding of the processes.



> I believe the probability would ultimately depend on how many separate mutations would be required in combination to overcome the obstacle, perhaps just one or perhaps quite a few. -windfall


Or both. Or neither. Predicting what form such adaptations will take can be an exercise in futility, I think. Consider the ways that animals currently have evolved to avoid certain things. Think about predation of weevils by birds, for example. Some species release their grip on whatever they're resting on and drop ("play dead") and hope to escape by dropping. Some species tighten their grip on whatever they're resting on; some of these have been reported to choke birds when they grasp the bird's tongue tightly after being grabbed. Some species are so heavily armored that they're difficult for birds to eat. Some have picked up chemicals from the plants they feed on to become distasteful to birds. How can anyone predict which form of adaption is likely to evolve?


----------



## windfall

I agree that predicting the mode of adaptation is near futile. The wonderful and almost unimagianble diversity we see in nature it testament to that!

It is not as if these adaptations are prepared/in stock waiting to be pulled into use. They are random...they may well be genetic "noise" until the conditions change and make them biologically useful. The available mutations also change over time and the "solution" might be quite different under the same selective pressure depending on what is in their genome at that point.

My objection is to say they are "probably similarly likely". Just because we don't understand the myriad of possibilities doesn't mean they do not have differing odds of occurring. We just have to be content with accepting our inability to predict. I suppose you could argue that given our inability to differentiate these odds we should treat them as equally likely. And I would certainly concede that the system and variables may be so chaotic that they are similarly likely to happen over a long period of time.

But this is perhaps putting to fine a point on the issue.


----------



## Kieck

> My objection is to say they are "probably similarly likely". -windfall


Fair enough. My argument here was to point out that claiming that resistance is likely to one form of treatment while asserting that resistance is virtually impossible to develop to another form of treatment is incorrect. The claim has been made a number of times in threads here that "resistance can't develop to mechanical means of control." Or to claim that "resistance is far less likely to develop to mechanical methods of control than resistance to chemical forms of control." Both, I think, are simply hopeful thinking that some of these treatments will prove so successful as to eradicate mites.

I suspect we are putting too fine a point on the details here.


----------



## windfall

I completely agree with your primary point, sorry if it seemed like I was splitting hairs.

I have seen these claims too and have been equally skeptical. I think they originate from the rapid resistance developed by many pests when highly specialized and receptor specific chemicals are used. My understanding is that frequently in those cases, you only need to alter one or two non-critical base pairs in the target and the toxin no longer interrupts or binds....but I am sliding well outside my pay-grade here.

I would have to put myself into the camp of those looking to achieve tolerance to mites. If the parasite-host relationship can get equalized, then we can let the ongoing slower co-evolution take it's usual course. Unfortunately current practices create an endless supply of new hosts (as far as the mites "perceive") and so there is no feedback selection on them for reduced virulence. Instead quite the opposite, a selective pressure for greater virulence is present.
I know folks are trying to breed resistant bees, but we need less virulent mites as well.....I really don't see how that comes about without some pretty drastic losses along the way....by everybody.


----------



## myfiverings

I'm rethinking my verroa plan too. I was doing my inspection yesterday and I noticed verroa on some drone larva. Once I saw these I started looking for some chemical free treatments to get this problem under control. I found some ideas in a book and I'm not sure how well they're going to work, but I think this is what I'm going to move forward with (at least this year). Any feedback on these ideas would be great. 
The first one is dusting them with a 4:1 mixture of powdered sugar and garlic. I am going to do this before I get honey supers on. (I don't want the powdered sugar to find its way into harvested honey. This one seems pretty easy and it sounds like there are lot of people that do this. I've never heard about the garlic before, but it supposedly helps kill bacteria in the hive.

The second is a drone frame. I want to put a drone frame in my hive to attract the verroa away from the workers brood. After its been in there 3-4 weeks pull it out freeze it. I will probably put it back in the brood box in another location. I'm just not sure if I should continue doing this all year or if a few times in the spring and in the fall would work. 

The last one that I read about is putting grease patties in the hive with essential oils infused. The idea is that the grease gets spread on the bees and the verroa can hold on to the bees andf all off. Then the essential oils helps kill the verroa by clogging their breathing tubes. 
If anyone has tried these I would like to hear if they work or not. Thanks


----------



## Michael Bush

>This one seems pretty easy and it sounds like there are lot of people that do this. I've never heard about the garlic before, but it supposedly helps kill bacteria in the hive.

Killing bacteria in the hive is not a good thing. There are 8,000 identified microbes in the hive and only four or five that are a problem. They rest either crowd out the pathogens or outright help the health of the hive by fermenting pollen etc. My guess is, that IF the garlic powder helps, it's because the odor makes it offensive and the bees groom more...

>The second is a drone frame. I want to put a drone frame in my hive to attract the verroa away from the workers brood. After its been in there 3-4 weeks pull it out freeze it. I will probably put it back in the brood box in another location. I'm just not sure if I should continue doing this all year or if a few times in the spring and in the fall would work.

I always figured I'd use this as a backup if small cell wasn't quickly resolving my issues, but I never needed it. It costs the bees enough resources that they could have raised an entire frame of brood. But if you do it, and your intent obviously is to kill the varroa, then 4 weeks is too long. Two weeks is a better plan. In 4 the drones will have emerged.

>The last one that I read about is putting grease patties in the hive with essential oils infused. The idea is that the grease gets spread on the bees and the verroa can hold on to the bees andf all off. Then the essential oils helps kill the verroa by clogging their breathing tubes.

The essential oils more likely interfere with the Varroa being able to smell the pheromones to get into the cells. The grease might clog their breathing tubes, but the essential oils won't be in high enough amounts to do so. Grease patties are a bad idea anywhere there are a lot of small hive beetles...


----------



## BEES4U

To help the understanding of commonly known chromosomal mutations this might help:


Four types of general structural alterations occur during replication of chromosomes. All four types begin with the breakage of a chromosome during replication. In a deletion, the broken segment of the chromosome is lost. Thus, all the genes that are present on this segment are also lost. In a duplication, the segment joins to the other chromosome of the pair. In an inversion, the segment attaches to the original chromosome, but in a reverse position. In a translocation, the segment attaches to an entirely different chromosome.


----------



## irwin harlton

By returning frozen killed drone brood to a colony you will also be returning viruses to that colony


----------



## TWall

irwin harlton said:


> By returning frozen killed drone brood to a colony you will also be returning viruses to that colony


Irwin,

While the virus is still potentially alive the vector is not.

Does anyone know how long these viruses can live in a dead host? And, can they be transmitted to bees while cleaning up the frames?

Tom


----------



## honeyshack

If memory serves, most viruses go dormant until they come in contact with something which will allow them to multiply.
Viruses, or rather most need extreme extreme cold or hot to be killed. Freezing in a freezer is not good enough. The problem comes with thresholds. Increase the amount of virus in the hive, or in any living object, if it reaches threshold levels, infections set in. All they need is something to incubate in. In this case it could be a weak bee or a weak bee with a previous puncture mark from a varroa.
The other key factor is stressors. If there are other stressors in the hive, say nutrition, nosema, chalkbrood, varroa which was not in the drone brood frozen, your threshold levels drop...expontentially.
So for numbers sake...out of think air....it takes 1 million viruses of DFW to reach threshold infection in a healthy hive...add in nosema....drop threshold by 100 000, at in varroa drop by 100 000 - 400 000 depending on the level of infestation, add in a dearth, drop by say 200 000, heavy brood production during a flow but the dearth happened suddenly so they still need to maintain those larva, add in 50 000. Now from the 1 million threshold level, adding in stressors your threshold level is now somewhere between 600 000 and 250 000 virus molecules per bee for infection to set in your hive.

If the viruses are in the frames of brood which get put back into your hive, it might take a while but there is a good chance infection will set in. It could take a whole season and into the following spring for the results to show up. By then, if the hive died, it will be "help I have no idea why my hive died."
Viruses, the silent, long term deadly killer


----------



## odfrank

>If the viruses are in the frames of brood which get put back into your hive, it might take a while but there is a good chance infection will set in

I have been concerned about re-using dead out brood combs which possibly do pass along viruses. BUT, the beginners around here are suffering the same die - off my bees do, with package bees put into brand new equipment with plastic foundation. Since the mites/virus are so contagious me starting over with all new equipment seems pointless.


----------



## Kieck

> Does anyone know how long these viruses can live in a dead host? And, can they be transmitted to bees while cleaning up the frames? -TWall


Viruses may or may not be "alive." They are not cellular, and many biologists use the cell as the smallest component of life. Using that definition, they are not alive. 

More importanly, in this case, is the mode of transmission. If a vector is necessary to move them from one to another, dead brood is unlikely to contribute to the spread of the viruses. The mites won't feed on dead bees, and the viruses that are in dead bees would then effectively be trapped in those carcasses. If a vector is not necessary, the hive is likely doomed anyway once the viruses are in it because reducing mite populations will not reduce disease transmission.

My guess is that the majority of the viruses transmitted by _Varroa_ go from live bee through live mite to live bee. The bees and mites may be in any stage of development, but I would guess they must be alive.


----------



## irwin harlton

To put it in another perspective , what you are saying is dead brood is more healthy than live brood ,dead brood may be cannot vector a virus to live bees......I would rather not take that risk,especially if that drone frame has a high population of mites


----------



## TWall

So, the consensus is we don't know if dead mites/brood or frozen drone frames can act as a source of virus? It looks like I need to research this a little more.

Tom


----------



## Kieck

I don't know. I do think that if _Varroa_ is a true vector and the viruses must go through the vector, dead brood with virus in it poses no threat. The virus will remain in it unless mites will feed on dead brood or dead bees (and nothing I've seen indicates that they can).

If the viruses move without a vector, then all bets are off. But then, _Varroa_ wouldn't be as significant, either, since they wouldn't be solely responsible for carrying viruses. DWV, IAPV, and other viruses would not be controlled by controlling the mites.


----------



## TWall

In another thread, Major losses in Vermont, Cam posted what looked like an abstract from research done in Switzerland. It found DWV and Varroa were the two main causes for winter losses. This made me wonder about the timing of varroa controls. Is waiting until summer, when populations move above thresholds for treatment too late? Should thresholds be lower, or trigger sooner in the season to have healthy bees in late summer? Is varroa virulence related more to virus load?

Tom


----------



## camero7

IMO most mite thresholds are too high. The varroa destructor paper indicates that up to 90% of the mites are in the brood in the summer. I have lowered my personal threshold to 1-2 mites in a alcohol shake. I am going to treat in mid August from now on to try for healthier winter bees. I don't think the virulence is related to virus load but that high counts will increase virus issues exponentially. There is a new paper that indicated nosema is not a problem in northern areas when the varroa counts are very low. A study in Massachusetts indicated that DWV and Black Queen Cell Virus is very prevalent in this area [all hives had DWV] Unfortunately there was no mention of the varroa count, just that DWV increased over the summer. I speculate that is related to increased varroa counts. I have written the authors and will post if I get a response.


----------



## Kieck

> Should thresholds be lower, or trigger sooner in the season to have healthy bees in late summer? Is varroa virulence related more to virus load? -TWall


If mites are known to be viruliferous (that is, "carrying viruses" -- different than "virulent"), the threshold should be lower and trigger sooner. Determining viruliference is difficult, as far as I know. Varroa "virulence" is almost certainly related to viruliference. I don't see how it couldn't be.

Think of it a bit like black flies (Simuliidae) -- sometimes called "buffalo gnats" or "biting gnats" or other common names -- and caribou calves. My understanding is that the black flies in the tundra reach populations high enough that the blood-feeding activities and harassment of the calves by the black flies kills caribou calves without any other factor (the black flies are "virulent"). However, if some of those black flies are carrying viruses (that is, they are vectors and are viruliferous) that also kill caribou, far fewer would be potentially lethal to calves.

In reality, a mix of the two almost certainly exists. The same is almost certainly true among _Varroa_.



> I don't think the virulence is related to virus load but that high counts will increase virus issues exponentially. -camero7


I believe you mean "viruliference" rather than "virulence."



> There is a new paper that indicated nosema is not a problem in northern areas when the varroa counts are very low. -camero7


Not to be confused, _Nosema_ is a fungus, not a virus. As such, it is not vectored by _Varroa_. The stress of a high mite population may make hives less able to cope with _Nosema_, but to the best of my knowledge, _Nosema_ is not transmitted by _Varroa_.



> A study in Massachusetts indicated that DWV and Black Queen Cell Virus is very prevalent in this area [all hives had DWV] -camero7


Both of these are viruses, and, as far as I know, both move through _Varroa_ as their vector.

Getting back to the dead brood, and using the biting-fly vector comparison a bit more, I think this is very much like West Nile virus (WNV) in humans. WNV is vectored by a few species of mosquito. The mosquito bites an infected individual, becomes viruliferous, and transmits the virus when it bites its next victim (it's also possible the infected female mosquito can transmit the virus to her offspring directly when she produces eggs). If an infected human dies of WNV, the virus remains in the body of that victim, but no more mosquitoes will bite that victim and pick up the virus from that person.

Same goes, I think, for dead brood and viruses transmitted by _Varroa_. Mites will not feed on dead brood. _Nosema_ and certainly some viruses that do not require a vector for transmission and bacteria are different, and will likely not be destroyed by freezing.


----------



## camero7

Kieck said:


> Not to be confused, _Nosema_ is a fungus, not a virus. As such, it is not vectored by _Varroa_. The stress of a high mite population may make hives less able to cope with _Nosema_, but to the best of my knowledge, _Nosema_ is not transmitted by _Varroa_.


Absolutely but this thread is about Varroa and high counts of varroa often result in high nosema spores. So keeping varroa down may result is less problems with nosema.


[/QUOTE]Same goes, I think, for dead brood and viruses transmitted by _Varroa_. Mites will not feed on dead brood. _Nosema_ and certainly some viruses that do not require a vector for transmission and bacteria are different, and will likely not be destroyed by freezing.[/QUOTE]
Agreed


----------

