Love your videos. It's a real pleasure to get videos made by someone who actually knows a great deal about bees. I live near Maitland and very early on had my two hives destroyed. I purchased replacement hives and placed them at my son's house near Blaxland in the Blue Mountains. Unfortunately, they were in a cool shady spot and didn't do well, requiring frequent feeding. When the eradication effort was over, I could then bring my hives back to Maitland, unfortunately only one hive survived to bring home. I tested the hive prior to moving with nil mites, after two months I retested and was astonished to find 80 mites. A Formic Pro treatment in August dropped numbers only to 25, a second treatment with Formic Pro in early September dropped numbers to 1 mite, but killed the queen. A month later I had two hives and one hive tested at 1 mite and the other at 32 mites. I removed all drones from the brood frames of the problem hive and treated both hives twice 10 days apart with oxalic/glycerine trickle and then two weeks later with cardboard strips saturated with oxalic acid and glycerine (using Randy Oliver's methods). For the last two months both hives have only tested at 1 mite. The only reason I can see for the two extremely high mite infestations is my bees raiding out a dying feral hive both times. While mites are an ongoing issue, I am getting great harvests of honey, as the Hunter still has all the original nectar sources, but very low bee numbers. Low bee numbers are very obvious with bees in gardens in the Hunter still being quite sparse.
Thanks for sharing that Steve, your story is familiar. I think it will take a year or two for those of us who want to continue with bees to get our heads around how to deal with Varroa. What works in the Hunter may be different to here & vice versa. I'm sorry to hear you lost your bees I know the feeling. Good luck mate.
Gday from Canada, your high mite count could be from drift as it's in the center of all the hives. Not a for sure but a possability. Good luck with the treatment.
Now that you mention it the three high counts were in the second hive in on each row. Might put a few landmarks on the ground in front of the hives to try & mix things up a bit. Thanks for that.
Glen also seems like youve got some really calm bees. They seem to pay you no attention at all, just keep doing their jobs!! Of course a lot of that is how calmly and methodically you handle the frames also!! Great job!! It’s crazy we watch some people on YT and they take a frame out sling it around and then “clunk” just drop it back in the box!!😂😂😂and wonder why their bees are so pissy!! 🤦♀️
Hi Glen, Just reinforcing your remark about beekeepers perhaps blaming SHB rather than Varroa. First detected Varroa (Sydney Northen Beaches) in April, and have been monitoring accumulated weekly mite fall ever since. Reached alcohol wash test threshold in May, treated w Bayvarol, (very effective) reached threshold again in August, treated with FormicPro (very effective, including inside capped cell kills, and induced a brood break), but needed to treat yet again in early December - using a suitable temperature forecast, again with FormicPro. SHB has been endemic here since ~2004, but I've never experienced anything like the onslaught of SHB that has occurred this Spring/early Summer. Other beekeepers in this area reported similar massive adult beetle attacks, but with many SHB being notably smaller than usual. My suspicion is that in response to Varroa, large numbers feral and unmanaged colonies are failing/absconding, leaving stores to be slimed out by SHB, which is blamed for suddenly ruined hives, rather than the Varroa which caused it. Hopefully this is a passing phase - I gather central coast area where hives were euthanised and ferrals really were baited by DPI , are not experiencing significant SHB this season.
Mate I have a theory that if a beekeeper wasn't in a red or purple zone, didn't lose their hives to the DPI eradication effort, didn't get their hives stripped & matted in the response this whole thing has passed them by.......... until beetles kill their hive. I run into people with bees near me & ask them about their Varroa strategy & their eyes glaze over. Yes beetles will sort the mess out however it's going to take a few years for things to settle down. Personally I haven't seen a big increase in beetle up here however we always have a lot. Thanks for commenting mate, call me anytime if you want to talk bees.
enjoy your videos and so interesting to see how folks in other places deal with the same issues. I am in the US (North Carolina) and switched over to HiveIQ this past spring. One thing I have been thinking about and cannot find much information on mite treatments vs temperature in these insulated hives. I have noticed over the summer here that we routinely get into temps above treatment guidelines right when we need to treat. But also have seen bees in the insulated hives not fanning in the summer and not clustering at fall lower temps than wooden hives. This is leading me to think that we that use insulated hives might be able to treat outside the high and low temps guidelines as the products were tested on wooden hives. I usually do Apiguard in August here (hot) but only use 1/3 doses. Starting to wonder if we can treat at full strength as the hives do not get as hot. Haven't really seen much on this yet.
That's an interesting observation. My understanding was the air temperature was what mattered. Possibly ventilated bottoms would make the treatments less effective. I never take my honey supers off so would be limited to Formic pro. Not experienced with them so can't comment too much. Thanks for watching & commenting
I just did a test at one of my sites, and had one count of 14 but the hives around it were all low at 0s, 2s, and 3s. Good time for the video mate. I'll be using Bayvarol too.
@mt.corambaapiculture I know lots aren't testing, they're waiting to see them on the bees. I'm testing every 4 weeks and I'm near Newcastle. I last treated some hives with the formic pro which seemed to work great but with the weather being really hot now it's out of the question. It's a steep leaning curve for all of us. Good luck with it all.
Glen, thanks for sharing your learning curve. We are commercial apiarists in south australia and feel next almond pollination event (2025) will result in mites. We would love to have extended oxalic strips in our hives (700) while on the almonds as a first line defense against large numbers invading the hives. I find it annoying in the least, that currently, it is legally impossible because of some subjective issues concerning OHS. Given our NZ counterparts have not endured major problems with its application, and given the residual buildup and long term resistance problems with Bayvarol , the slow moving approval process to suitable organic solutions seems to me to be utter stupidity. But then maybe I'm just a small business employing 2 young people what would I know? Thanks again, send some rain... Mark
Thanks Mark yes it is frustrating. Oxalic acid slow release strips are in widespread use in NSW. It would make sense to legitimise it & put some procedures in place to help with OHS issues. The only two products I can use legally at the moment are Bayvarol & Formic pro. Formic pro is out of the mix due to the daytime temperature. What do I do in 6 - 8 weeks time when the thousands of feral hives around me are collapsing & reinfesting my bees? My only choice is to back up again with Bayvarol & that is what I hear is happening in the Kempsey area now.
@@mt.corambaapiculture Yep Formic Pro approved, but almost unless for most of Australia. Get it wrong and the bees abscond. Glen I've also been told OA slow release is widespread....OK what is best practice 2gms /4gms for Australian conditions which respirator is the best. How about bulk buy by authorities and sold to registered apiarists at cost recovery. How about field trials to determine whether clear dish soap has a greater accuracy than alcohol.. ( Based on Randy Olivers findings it is better.) The Department burnt through the Incursion war chest until all the money was gone and the silence from the authorities now deafening. As far as what to do? Your going to be an apiarist in 5 years or more because you care and think what's best for the bees. Well done love the channel.
another great message on random mite test numbers , there is no rhyme or reason to it . Ill be interested in your sticky mat results on the 30 mite hive , i used api-guard on a 28 count and the first day drop was 489 and at the end of the treatment wash was 3 mite , we removed a bayvarol treatment last week that showed a 3 mite result too
What makes you think the wild population of bees have dropped. That would be very interesting. Overseas research seems to indicate mite resistance is gaining from wild hives being naturally selected re death rates due to mites
@@mt.corambaapicultureyea it takes a while, New Yorks wild populations took forever to rebuild. Same for Hawaii. The best example is Cuba who never started treating and they are doing amazing
Thanks again for sharing your videos. Just a question: So does the Bayvarol not build up in the wax in your honey supers? Does it only affect the wax in the brood box? I Hope you and your family have a lovely Christmas and new year :)
Bayvarol contains Flumethrin which is lipotrophic ie absorbed into fat. So beeswax absorbs it. Once a hive has been treated you can only extract honey from the broodbox & sell it after testing it & ensuring it is below the MRL what ever that is. You can't sell honeycomb produced in a hive that has Bayvarol in it while that honeycomb is produced. You can harvest & sell the honey from honey supers so I would presume that the product has been trialled & no residues have been found in the honey from honey supers. I'm no expert but that is my understanding.
@@mt.corambaapiculture glen i was told by a DPI development officer doing varroa washes here on our bees that they had tested 2500 hives for residual chemicals in the honey supers and found no evidence of contamination
Yeah I would have taken a few hundred of them. That would have been with 4 strips in the brood box for 48 hrs so you wouldn't expect any detections. It's approved with the supers on so it would have been trialled & tested.
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Thorough and professional. That's how these battles are won. Thank you. Cheers...
Cheers mate.
All the best for Christmas and New Year mate. Thanks for sharing your journey the videos are much appreciated. 🐝🐝
Cheers mate, hope you have a good one too.
Dear Glen, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year , thanks for all your informative videos, cheers Keith 😉
Thanks Keith same to you mate, stay safe & cool.
Love your videos. It's a real pleasure to get videos made by someone who actually knows a great deal about bees.
I live near Maitland and very early on had my two hives destroyed. I purchased replacement hives and placed them at my son's house near Blaxland in the Blue Mountains. Unfortunately, they were in a cool shady spot and didn't do well, requiring frequent feeding. When the eradication effort was over, I could then bring my hives back to Maitland, unfortunately only one hive survived to bring home. I tested the hive prior to moving with nil mites, after two months I retested and was astonished to find 80 mites. A Formic Pro treatment in August dropped numbers only to 25, a second treatment with Formic Pro in early September dropped numbers to 1 mite, but killed the queen. A month later I had two hives and one hive tested at 1 mite and the other at 32 mites. I removed all drones from the brood frames of the problem hive and treated both hives twice 10 days apart with oxalic/glycerine trickle and then two weeks later with cardboard strips saturated with oxalic acid and glycerine (using Randy Oliver's methods). For the last two months both hives have only tested at 1 mite.
The only reason I can see for the two extremely high mite infestations is my bees raiding out a dying feral hive both times. While mites are an ongoing issue, I am getting great harvests of honey, as the Hunter still has all the original nectar sources, but very low bee numbers. Low bee numbers are very obvious with bees in gardens in the Hunter still being quite sparse.
Thanks for sharing that Steve, your story is familiar. I think it will take a year or two for those of us who want to continue with bees to get our heads around how to deal with Varroa. What works in the Hunter may be different to here & vice versa. I'm sorry to hear you lost your bees I know the feeling. Good luck mate.
Another great video, I pulled my Bayvarol strips out today after having them in for 6 weeks . A hive that had mite count of 17/300 now has 0.
Yes they certainly work. It will be interesting to see what your count will be in a month.
Gday from Canada, your high mite count could be from drift as it's in the center of all the hives. Not a for sure but a possability. Good luck with the treatment.
Now that you mention it the three high counts were in the second hive in on each row. Might put a few landmarks on the ground in front of the hives to try & mix things up a bit. Thanks for that.
Glen also seems like youve got some really calm bees. They seem to pay you no attention at all, just keep doing their jobs!! Of course a lot of that is how calmly and methodically you handle the frames also!! Great job!! It’s crazy we watch some people on YT and they take a frame out sling it around and then “clunk” just drop it back in the box!!😂😂😂and wonder why their bees are so pissy!! 🤦♀️
That hive was good. I've had a few undesirables lately however I have been requeening a lot.
Hi Glen,
Just reinforcing your remark about beekeepers perhaps blaming SHB rather than Varroa. First detected Varroa (Sydney Northen Beaches) in April, and have been monitoring accumulated weekly mite fall ever since. Reached alcohol wash test threshold in May, treated w Bayvarol, (very effective) reached threshold again in August, treated with FormicPro (very effective, including inside capped cell kills, and induced a brood break), but needed to treat yet again in early December - using a suitable temperature forecast, again with FormicPro. SHB has been endemic here since ~2004, but I've never experienced anything like the onslaught of SHB that has occurred this Spring/early Summer. Other beekeepers in this area reported similar massive adult beetle attacks, but with many SHB being notably smaller than usual. My suspicion is that in response to Varroa, large numbers feral and unmanaged colonies are failing/absconding, leaving stores to be slimed out by SHB, which is blamed for suddenly ruined hives, rather than the Varroa which caused it. Hopefully this is a passing phase - I gather central coast area where hives were euthanised and ferrals really were baited by DPI , are not experiencing significant SHB this season.
Mate I have a theory that if a beekeeper wasn't in a red or purple zone, didn't lose their hives to the DPI eradication effort, didn't get their hives stripped & matted in the response this whole thing has passed them by.......... until beetles kill their hive. I run into people with bees near me & ask them about their Varroa strategy & their eyes glaze over. Yes beetles will sort the mess out however it's going to take a few years for things to settle down. Personally I haven't seen a big increase in beetle up here however we always have a lot. Thanks for commenting mate, call me anytime if you want to talk bees.
enjoy your videos and so interesting to see how folks in other places deal with the same issues. I am in the US (North Carolina) and switched over to HiveIQ this past spring. One thing I have been thinking about and cannot find much information on mite treatments vs temperature in these insulated hives. I have noticed over the summer here that we routinely get into temps above treatment guidelines right when we need to treat. But also have seen bees in the insulated hives not fanning in the summer and not clustering at fall lower temps than wooden hives. This is leading me to think that we that use insulated hives might be able to treat outside the high and low temps guidelines as the products were tested on wooden hives. I usually do Apiguard in August here (hot) but only use 1/3 doses. Starting to wonder if we can treat at full strength as the hives do not get as hot. Haven't really seen much on this yet.
That's an interesting observation. My understanding was the air temperature was what mattered. Possibly ventilated bottoms would make the treatments less effective. I never take my honey supers off so would be limited to Formic pro. Not experienced with them so can't comment too much. Thanks for watching & commenting
I just did a test at one of my sites, and had one count of 14 but the hives around it were all low at 0s, 2s, and 3s. Good time for the video mate. I'll be using Bayvarol too.
Thanks yeah it just shows how important monitoring is. A small count can turn into a large one quickly it seems & if you don't know you don't know.
@mt.corambaapiculture I know lots aren't testing, they're waiting to see them on the bees. I'm testing every 4 weeks and I'm near Newcastle. I last treated some hives with the formic pro which seemed to work great but with the weather being really hot now it's out of the question. It's a steep leaning curve for all of us.
Good luck with it all.
As a Canadian I will definitely say that monitoring is of the utmost importance.
Thanks for commenting.
Thanks Jason that's what I am finding.
We have treated our brood with the Varroa controller and then put Bayvarol strips in the hive
Good news Sue
Glen, thanks for sharing your learning curve. We are commercial apiarists in south australia and feel next almond pollination event (2025) will result in mites. We would love to have extended oxalic strips in our hives (700) while on the almonds as a first line defense against large numbers invading the hives. I find it annoying in the least, that currently, it is legally impossible because of some subjective issues concerning OHS. Given our NZ counterparts have not endured major problems with its application, and given the residual buildup and long term resistance problems with Bayvarol , the slow moving approval process to suitable organic solutions seems to me to be utter stupidity. But then maybe I'm just a small business employing 2 young people what would I know? Thanks again, send some rain... Mark
Thanks Mark yes it is frustrating. Oxalic acid slow release strips are in widespread use in NSW. It would make sense to legitimise it & put some procedures in place to help with OHS issues. The only two products I can use legally at the moment are Bayvarol & Formic pro. Formic pro is out of the mix due to the daytime temperature. What do I do in 6 - 8 weeks time when the thousands of feral hives around me are collapsing & reinfesting my bees? My only choice is to back up again with Bayvarol & that is what I hear is happening in the Kempsey area now.
@@mt.corambaapiculture Yep Formic Pro approved, but almost unless for most of Australia. Get it wrong and the bees abscond. Glen I've also been told OA slow release is widespread....OK what is best practice 2gms /4gms for Australian conditions which respirator is the best. How about bulk buy by authorities and sold to registered apiarists at cost recovery. How about field trials to determine whether clear dish soap has a greater accuracy than alcohol..
( Based on Randy Olivers findings it is better.) The Department burnt through the Incursion war chest until all the money was gone and the silence from the authorities now deafening. As far as what to do? Your going to be an apiarist in 5 years or more because you care and think what's best for the bees. Well done love the channel.
another great message on random mite test numbers , there is no rhyme or reason to it . Ill be interested in your sticky mat results on the 30 mite hive , i used api-guard on a 28 count and the first day drop was 489 and at the end of the treatment wash was 3 mite , we removed a bayvarol treatment last week that showed a 3 mite result too
I'm heading out into the shade to count them now. 489 looks about right at first glance
How concerned are you that it is going to get moved up into the honey supers?
I'm concerned about Varroa killing my bees
What makes you think the wild population of bees have dropped. That would be very interesting. Overseas research seems to indicate mite resistance is gaining from wild hives being naturally selected re death rates due to mites
Because I found my first mite 4 months ago. It takes years to build resistance to Varroa.
@@mt.corambaapicultureyea it takes a while, New Yorks wild populations took forever to rebuild. Same for Hawaii. The best example is Cuba who never started treating and they are doing amazing
I'm pretty sure Cuba had massive losses initially
Thanks again for sharing your videos. Just a question: So does the Bayvarol not build up in the wax in your honey supers? Does it only affect the wax in the brood box? I Hope you and your family have a lovely Christmas and new year :)
Bayvarol contains Flumethrin which is lipotrophic ie absorbed into fat. So beeswax absorbs it. Once a hive has been treated you can only extract honey from the broodbox & sell it after testing it & ensuring it is below the MRL what ever that is. You can't sell honeycomb produced in a hive that has Bayvarol in it while that honeycomb is produced. You can harvest & sell the honey from honey supers so I would presume that the product has been trialled & no residues have been found in the honey from honey supers. I'm no expert but that is my understanding.
@@mt.corambaapiculture ok thank you
@@mt.corambaapiculture glen i was told by a DPI development officer doing varroa washes here on our bees that they had tested 2500 hives for residual chemicals in the honey supers and found no evidence of contamination
Yeah I would have taken a few hundred of them. That would have been with 4 strips in the brood box for 48 hrs so you wouldn't expect any detections. It's approved with the supers on so it would have been trialled & tested.