Mite count was TOO HIGH. Did the APIGUARD treatment work?
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- I used APIGUARD to treat some of my colonies for mites. Did it work?
Apiguard Treatment video: • WINTER PREP | Checking...
#brucesbees #Apiguard #beesarecool #varroamites
I really like the results I get from Apigard and then hit them with a little OA in the winter time.
I had an outlier in my bee yard of 22 hives. I tested all of em. Treated em. Then retested and had one with 14 mites. I just treated them again with formic pro, 2 pads for 14 days. Retested again and we were at zero. These outliers are hard to deal with and can cause problems for hives around them if/when they crash
Treated with Formic pro 2 seasons and always had 50% queens lost. Any suggestions?
@@user-fy5jb5wk6i this was last year. This year I treated 50 hives and lost 3 queens with it. I try to be picky about the first 3 days of weather. I hope for under 80. I will still treat up to high of 85. No entrances reducers. No upper entrance, 8+ frames of bee coverage.
I have only used Formic Pro a little bit. Treated a few hives with it earlier this year. Seemed to work well. It is temperature sensitive though as I’m sure you probably know.
You might find this interesting. An interview I did with the Formic Pro Rep Tom Nolan. ruclips.net/video/iatajMwm-g8/видео.htmlsi=plO8RHIZN-ejvqDE
I'd hit those with mites one more time with something different and finish cleaning them up. Thanks Bruce!
Yeah plan to do some OAV treatments soon
Bruce, I use apiguard here in Tulsa, OK in temps up to 105. I don't do two 50gm, but three rounds of 33gm each.
I know why you lifted your top and at first I thought that was going to be failure for you. I would suggest a rim to keep the fumes inside. I was also wondering about the double nuc in the middle instead of the top. But it worked for you.
I have only ever had a yard with mixed results before. It was the strongest hives. The yard also had several hobbyists in the area.
My conclusion was after one of the hobby beekeepers accused my hives of robbing and killing his bees. During this conversation I found out that he was a treatment free beekeeper.
I wouldn't be able to prove nor could he that it was my bees. But I think it was and they brought back his mites. Just my thoughts.
Thanks for the input. Yeah not sure about the Midland City bees. They have had some issues all along. One big mistake I made was that I did not treat those bees when they got back from almonds so I think I have been fighting an uphill battle all year. Overall they are looking pretty good. Just have to keep fighting those little red mites! Thanks for checking in Malcolm.
Sounds like your neighbors hives crashed and your bees took advantage. They robbed them out, but also brought back the remaining mites.
I got hit several times at one apiary with mite bombs for the very same reason
Used apiguard for the first time this year and loved it.
I've had good results with it myself. I usually apply it in August and heat is a real factor. I only use 3 small, 33g doses. It does shut queens down and do have some supercedures occasionally. But over all good results
Thanks for the input!
A lot of users are doing three treatments but using one third the recommended amount.
I’m getting ready to treat and I’ll do your method this year. It’s strong stuff and affect the brood rearing
Hey Bruce! Great video, glad the Apigaurd worked, gonna remove my Apivar strips tomorrow so I may put together a video showing it! Very interesting and thanks for sharing! God bless
Apivar hasn’t worked on my hives and I stopped using it a few years ago. After you remove them make sure to do mite counts. I wonder if your numbers dropped.
I have used Apivar a couple of times with very good results.
@@brucesbees You're lucky. Resistance took hold around her about four years ago
Great video brother! God Bless You and Your Bees!!!
I would drop some apivar strips in those still with high mite counts. Besides that all the others look good 👍
Checked on mine today. After 2 Apiguard treatments Wash was down to 3/300 from 13/300. Improved so will do some OA later this month. My Carni hives brooded down some but all were pretty good.
The Pepto pink hive is going nuts! Had one of original hives that got robbed but we still have some brood and some bees.
Sounds like things are going well for you Lisa!
Thanks! Mihai beekeeper from Roumania.
How did you miss the pink pepto marked queen, she should stand out like a sore swollen thumb, anyway great instructional video, HOW BOUT THEM DAWGS, ONLY TEAM IN BOTH DIVISIONS OF THE SEC THATS 9 - 0, GO DAWGS. Glad your Apiguard is working.
I didn’t go through the whole thing so I’m thinking she was on another frame. Congrats to the Bulldogs
Great video Bruce. Seems that Apiguard did a great job... mostly zeros.
Good for you Bruce 0 mites or 1 mite is excellent. thanks for the video.
Yes this treatment was effective. It seems most work pretty well as long as directions are followed.
My thoughts are that the mites could come from a feral colony getting robbed, and/or some hives had more brood at treatment time, and/or some hives have some level of mite control and some don't.
As far as treatment Bruce I'd hit them with 4g of OA a couple of times.
I tend to agree and plan to nail them with OAV soon. Since the results were so good in Ozark I am leaning towards your robbed out theory. Maybe a feral colony or maybe a “treatment free” beek nearby that I don’t know about. But really don’t know.
Nice video Bruce. Glad apigard worked well for you.
I got a ton of propolis from around those cards, Gonna make some tincture.
I’d be worried with the brood left in those that mites weren’t under the caps I’d do apivar or oa treatments over a period of time
Mostly nice results, I have been using straight mineral oil during Honey Production, and with a few drops of Thyme oil added to the mineral oil with no supers on...This oil is added to blue shop towel rolls sawed in half...Then put in fitting sized Tupperware containers...The Towels ABSORB the oil....
I had to treat twice here in Ga.
My Apiguard protocol was 1/2 dose x 2 seven days apart. Then a full dose 7 days later that I left in the colony for 2 weeks.
that thumbnail: lid pops and bees get a very surprising shower before they shuffle off the mortal coil
Interesting…but ok lol.
I really wish they would be a little more original with names so I could keep then straight, Apiguard is Thymol right?
From everything I have watched this year I'm thinking OA and Thymol are my goto's, I don't think I am interested in the synthetics. Give them some OAV or another round of the Apiguard, can you run another round of that? Ty for sharing your time Bruce, Blessed Days...
Probably going to hit them with OAV soon
Just a thought, those with high mite counts were your almond pollination bees on pallets, right? If so those mites came back from Cali and might be Apiguard resistant, I think that's what Ian Steffan is experiencing, his bees are in a shed 40% of the time so mites came make many generations of mites and the bees can't fly and groom as they would naturally, your pollination bees go to the mite festival of world and no telling what get exposed to is all I'm saying, one other thought is the phonetic mites might sense the Apiguard strips and move to flying bees that don't get exposed to the chemicals, so they survive the treatments, once it's gone they go back to raising new mites. Varroa mites can't see because they have no eyes, but their front legs have all the sensing they need to smell out bees and e beta ocimene the pheromone emitted by hatching eggs and milk brood, anyway just my thinking out of the box,, a penny for your thoughts on why mites are hard to beat. I can tell you for a fact the OAE sponge method last longer than 90 days, Friday I pulled the top deep off one of double deeps to let them condense as a single, the sponges were still there and they were queen right, didn't find her but several frames had tiny milk brood, I didn't want it to get chilled so I hurriedly scraped off the sponges and propolis and burr comb to close them up, didn't even think about my respirator, about 45 minutes later I started coughing and remembered the smell of the OA crystals scent when I heated the OA and veggie glycerin to make the OAE sponges, I'm guessing you could leave it on till Jan or early Feb if you wanted super mite control, mine been on since mid Aug with no effects to the bees other than they don't want in the hives, but they still worked the cotton and fall flows just as hard and are still brooding up as usual, one of my double deeps is still raising a few drones just not where the sponges are, but about 3" away. Take care, my Bama bee friend.
Hey thanks for checking in and taking the time to brainstorm a bit for me. Lots of things to think about.
Well I watched the cotton harvesting video, then remembered those are your almond bees, then that put me to thinking, you had some pretty high mite numbers in those bees compared your other yard. Nothing wrong with sending bees to pollinate almonds, I just think you'll have to adopt a different mite control strategy for those returning colonies is all.
Ian Steppler's video was about Apivar not Apiguard. Amatraz is the active ingredient in Apivar and it's been well documented that bees can develop a resistance to the miticide. I don't believe there is any evidence to a Apiguard resistant mite.
My point was Ian has been using Apivar as a main mite treatment and cleanup with OAV, so his mites could be building a resistance to it, in correlation to my point was Bruce got good results to Apiguard in his home bees, but when you send bees to the almonds, you have no idea what those bees have been treated with and being as concentrated as they are you could have as much as 15% drift, then you have no idea what these drifting bees and mites are resistant to and I'm pretty sure you get back some bees that have never been treated with and for anything, let go they can turn into mite bombs, were I Bruce and gonna continue to send bees to the almonds, I'd probably wash them a few times after coming back and find the queens raising great bees with the lowest mite counts and get Greg to make queens off those few best queens, in other words breed some bees specifically for the almond mite festival. I'm funny and think that way, he might hit on some VSH mite killer bees.
@@carlsledge3868 good points y’all. I did not treat when they came back fork almonds. Will try not to make that mistake again. I am about to hammer them with OAV soon and see what happens.
I like seeing zeros
Outliers will drive a guy to drink
No doubt.
requeen the ones with high mite counts, try to find some queens with the vsh trait for those. I just think that some bees can grow mites better.
Could be true.
I see that you use both wooden and plastic frames. Do you buy the frames that are extra coated with wax or melt and apply additional wax yourself? Both styles look like the bees did a good job of drawing them out.
I use extra heavy or triple waxed on all my foundation. Super important.
I do lower doses over longer period with Apiguard, that way you capture mites from emerging brood. I didn't watch the video where you did the treatment, did you do 2x50g? Instead of dividing the 100g. total treatment dose in half I do 3 treatments of 30g.
I did two half dose treatments a weeks apart and then one full dose and left it in for two weeks. Here is the video. ruclips.net/video/LiRgispC2dc/видео.html
@@brucesbees I did 3 x 30g like Kamon suggested, didn't bother to check though, too cold to open, doing OAV around Thanksgiving, then again around Christmas.
What were your temperatures while testing with Apiguard, if its to hot it could cause issues for the bees?
It was pretty hot. If hot you are supposed to use a half dose. Which is what I did.
Great results in Ozark, but man, what happened in Midland City I wonder? If that were pre-treatment, it would be fine, but after treatments, should've been lower. I believe it had to be them robbing infested colonies. I'd blast them with OA rapidly for the next 2 weeks at 4 days apart with double doses of OA. One time a couple years ago, I was washing some colonies and when I looked in the pan just prior to shaking them down and scooping, I saw the queen!! Still makes me nervous, but a risk we take to keep them healthy.
Yes it is a bit nerve racking. I am going to hammer them with OAV soon. It is a mystery to me why some of them were so high. I also wonder if there might be a “treatment free” beekeeper nearby somewhere that lost some colonies? No idea…
It worked to perfection in Ozark though so it really is a mystery to me.
@@brucesbees With all your feral colonies in the area you don't need another beekeeper.
I washed a queen last week 🤦🏼♂️
@@burleybeeyard oh no. Unless you find her it’s always a risk.
Thank you Bruce. What was the temperature during the video?
I can’t remember exactly but it was a nice day. Probably 70s or low 80s
Blast those colonies with the higher mite load with some more mite killing goodness!
You made me nervous handling that soapy water over your open hives. :)
Yes it is not ideal but trying to show the process for the camera becomes a little difficult when a one man operation. I usually spread out a bit more and don’t feel like o have to stay right there above the colony that is opened up.
Wish there was a fool proof method for treating. I've never used Apiguard myself.
It worked well in Ozark and many of the hives in Midland City are clean enough. Just not sure why all are not within threshold. Maybe some mite bomb dead outs nearby in feral colonies or an unknown beekeeper.🤷🏻♂️ Who knows?
If any of my hives had higher mite counts after treatment. I am hitting them with OAV!!
Yes that is coming very soon!
Great! Can't wait to watch it.
Bruce, good video. Is Apiguard supposed to kill the mites on capped brood? I think that I would hit them one more time on the hives that washed 10. It would be cool to do Apiguard on one and Formic Pro on the other if you’re not going about 85degrees. Then compare those results.
I don’t believe it gets to the mites below the cappings. That’s a good idea. Thanks Don
Apiguard only kills exposed mites. The treatments need a month to kill what’s coming out
Yea I bought a bucket of apiguard and had spotty results. Most would come up as 1-3 but there was a certain % that would be 10+ and that's just not acceptable. Nothing against the product but it's just not for me. I have used formic pro for a couple years and that has knocked the mites back well every time.
Yeah I am just starting to try Formic Pro. But my results were also inconsistent with Apiguard.
OAV 2 treatments
Gonna got them with OAV soon
Great video....did you use 50g Bruce? .. .at what low temps should you not use Apiguard?
I treated twice with a half dose a week apart. Then a full dose and left it in for two weeks. Not sure if there is a low end limit. Didn’t have to worry about it. I used a half dose the first two weeks because the highs were in the 80s and the last dose was cooler so went with a full dose.
When I say full dose I mean 50g in the full strength colonies but less in the smaller ones. I tried to pretty much follow the instructions on the proxy product.
They will be getting treated with OAV in a few weeks.
I've found that the temp is key. You don't have much control over that. About all we can do is control the concentration of volatile compounds by controlling the ventilation and that's kind of a crude control. If it's cool I just try to reduce the ventilation to keep the concentration of volatile compounds higher and if it's warm, I increase ventilation to reduce the concentration of volatile compounds. It's tricky to keep that concentration in the sweet spot.