If you’re sampling a broodless hive vs a hive with brood, would there not be different acceptable levels of mite counts? Example if hive “A” is broodless and shakes 8 mites, and hive “B” has 6 frames of brood and shakes 2 mites, based on the assumption 80 percent of varroa is in the brood, those two hives actually have comparable mite loads? Of course we all want our shakes to be near zero in any hive but I’ve shaken 12, 15 mites out of hives in broodless October and they wintered fine.
I agree. But the line of thought was different. Data had shown that broodless colonies were maybe shedding their mites and held low mite counts as compared to queen right colonies. So, my blowing and killing the queenless colonies might be a feel good activity. I’m trying to verify that observed trend. So fat o have not seen it. But farmers analyze data differently than researchers lol
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlogyes, I get your line of thinking there. Honestly, we’ve done the lazy man approach, queenless singles with good populations get moved under good queenright ones to make strong doubles for winter. We evaluate mite levels on a yard by yard basis so don’t really bother with worrying about individual mite loads in hives. Those doubles consistently come out the strongest and with the lowest losses.
I know costs have to be considered, would it be more beneficial to hit you queenless units with MAQS or OAV at 4 grams per box to kill most of the phoretic mites and then combine them into another colony. Does your blowing and killing result in killing all of the mites or do they find an escape route. I know they have to hitch a ride to the next colony so depending on your method it could be very effective.
Ian here is a bad news story on treating an testing I had four years ago. In a yard of twenty colonies . I started in January I did mite washes every month on every single colony. The highest count I get was on one colony it washed five mites an ALL the rest I was washing zero an ones all year . Well in August I had purchased a new OA vaperizer an thought well Just for kicks an giggles I would try it to see just how good it works . I run all screen bottom boards with a IPM board in the bottom. On Sept. the first i treatment every hive on that yard an came back the next morning and pulled all the IPM boards . I said SOB it looked like I had taken a jar of pepper an took the lid off and poured the pepper in the IPM boards it was I think thousands thousands of dead mites . It took I think it was eight OA treatment doing one every five days to clean up all my colonies. I still do mite washing but I don’t trust them at all . The OAV treatment saved my bacon an my bees yes it takes time but it works . I have used Apivar but still had to go back with OAV . Hope this helps
Don’t give up on Formic yet. It is a bit late now, but if you put in a 14 day Formic treatment immediately after the honey pull, in my experience, the queen shuts down for 7-10 days, which would still give you enough time to build winter bees back up for winter. You are correct that we only have limited treatment option. In my opinion, you just used Formic earlier this year at the wrong time. Give it another go next year.
What we need is Real World Data not lab data real world data. Lab experiments are great but they can fall short of what is seen in the real world. Thanks Ian, keep up the great work.
As you talked about queen less hives it occurred to me that they may go queen less at any time. Wouldn't it make sense to keep a battery operated oxalic acid vaporizer in the truck and hit these hives with OA as soon as you find a queen less hive and then decide what to do with it. That way you reduce the chance of those mites from migrating. Just a thought.
Any pattern in your mite loads per hive based on the genetics of the queen? I find the presence of VSH genetics is the primary predictor of mite load within a hive, even comparing units across the same yard.
My spring splits, the parent colony, and the new colonies always have fewer mites than the colonies that weren't split, I mark the splits every year, and this holds true. Colonies that have swarm through the season usually have little to no mites. Smaller colonies have fewer mites than heavy brooders. This time of year, you should sample the bees on the wall or outside frame, not the brood nest. You will have a sleepless night if you do. There isn't enough larvae for all the mites to climb back in a cell, so the mites hide on the outer edges.
I had one travel on my jacket to the house… I did give Randy Oliver a call about this… Was surprised it traveled and stayed alive… But we might be helping them mites move to different areas without knowing it…
Hi Ian, I’ve heard Randy Oliver say in one of his talks that they shake every colony, I think he’s got a shaker he uses. He’s all about efficiency. Maybe you can reach out to him on his process, I wish I knew the name of the video.
I feel that as a unit fails in August, it would have a higher mite count due to the lack of brood for them to hide in. Similar to November, mite counts when they shut down brood production. Would it be beneficial to use OAV on these units?
Food for thought: your hives after pulling them down to singles have a massive population, that population probably requires more mite treatment than an average hive or a double because of the concentration of bees. I have heard singles hives are harder to treat with OA vapor because of this especially in the fall also strips work on contact and kill mites as they emerge. Maybe a third strip is required with such a high population? The high mite counts are just the emerging mites as the brood hatches. Apivar may need 50 days to kill the majority of mites.
Only 1 mite on around 200 bee sample is 0.5% Very low I suspect that the dead larvae thrown out of the entrance is the hygienic behaviour that you are looking for Seems to be working in that colony.
I like your thoughts. I would suggest you run the ApitableT throughout the winter on some of your hives and check your mite checks coming out of winter. I believe you will be at zero on those hives. Then run the test through your tech transfer team. Also do viral checks on them. I believe you all will have a surprise result. I’m only a user and have no other ties to the product!
Less brood = more mites. Of course we always have outliers with anything in ag. I would think with the reduced brood the effectiveness of OA will increase. If it wasn't for your long extended winters you would be in fairly good shape.
Here in Goldenbay New Zealand where coming into spring worse varroa problems Eva larst fall I'm worried and looking at similar game plan chemical treatments not working so well I've just been vaporizering oxalic acid every week but most likely left with putting in the srips of Apivar also and keeping up vaporizering also looking into brood brakes to force the mites out and then hitting them with the vaporizer thanks for you upload your seems like a real global problem getting worse good luck with it
If chemicals and medications were the answer then this problem would have been resolved many years ago. Breeding is your answer. Everything else is just a crutch to get you to that finish line. That’s not what you want to hear but it is the reality that you are physically looking at. Treating breeds a better mite not a better bee.
If a hive swarms in the spring and in the fall would that bee optimum brood breaks for Combate dieses control, bees have been dealing with issues for what 10 thousand years without human intervention.
Is there really anything else to do but end them? What good are they to you in Manitoba in Mid Sept? Is there time to put a nuc into it? or is there even a point to that as what ever nuc you have is ready for winter where ever it is and would be about the same size come April 1.
Have you tried Apistan instead of Apivar ? I don't have a big Mite problem since using it. After Honey removal and start of the autuum dearth, I give them sugar water, adding a few drops of Tea Tree oil and a few drops of Thyme Oil & lime juice for the Vit C. After 3-4 weeks I then apply the Apistan strips. My biggest problem in the UK is Wax Moths and Giant Slugs taking up residence in the winter Hives.
Is a 4k image of an entire frame high resolution enough to see the mites on the bees? (Obviously vert difficult to scan an image manually to count mites but with ai it sounds very possible if 4k is good enough,.)
I have a nutritionist to help formulate my dairy cow ration, an A.I. guy to help in breeding and sire selection, an agronomist for crops, etc.etc.etc... can't even get a vet to look in my colonies and a bee inspector that has never shown up! What to do?
Have you considered switching from Apivar to Apiguard for your late summer/fall treatment? I had similar issues in the fall last year with Apivar not being quite as effective as needed. I switched to Apiguard this fall.
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Got it. Just watched your latest entry. Hopefully you’re correct about the Apivar strip timing and that’s the issue. This was my first attempt with Aipiguard. I put 25 mgs in my singles on Aug. 30th. Followed up with another30mg.s 10 days later. I checked a handful of them between applications and didn’t see any sign of reduced egg laying. I could just be lucky though as I’ve heard that thymol can really put a stop to it. Good luck. P.S I wonder if there’s a synergistic benefit from the Apivar and your upcoming OAV treatments? Could one chemistry make the other chemistry more affective 🤷🏻♂️
Apiguard here with OA dust ups after. Good results but in the north here it has to go on right after we pull honey. Forgive me if you have Ian but have you used it? And it does retard Spring swarming to an extent. Thank you ala Mr. Bob Binnie. Luck to you Ian!
With your cold climate, why is it they survive so well vs like us in subtropic? One would think they would die off in extreme cold climate and thrive in subtropic climate. But it seems to be the opposite..
Are they touching the strips? This late you are probably looking at Formic… OA isn’t going to do much for ya this late, your bees are making sick winter bees. Need to cycle something besides apivar in your mites are resistant…
If you’re sampling a broodless hive vs a hive with brood, would there not be different acceptable levels of mite counts? Example if hive “A” is broodless and shakes 8 mites, and hive “B” has 6 frames of brood and shakes 2 mites, based on the assumption 80 percent of varroa is in the brood, those two hives actually have comparable mite loads? Of course we all want our shakes to be near zero in any hive but I’ve shaken 12, 15 mites out of hives in broodless October and they wintered fine.
I agree. But the line of thought was different.
Data had shown that broodless colonies were maybe shedding their mites and held low mite counts as compared to queen right colonies.
So, my blowing and killing the queenless colonies might be a feel good activity.
I’m trying to verify that observed trend. So fat o have not seen it.
But farmers analyze data differently than researchers lol
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlogyes, I get your line of thinking there.
Honestly, we’ve done the lazy man approach, queenless singles with good populations get moved under good queenright ones to make strong doubles for winter. We evaluate mite levels on a yard by yard basis so don’t really bother with worrying about individual mite loads in hives. Those doubles consistently come out the strongest and with the lowest losses.
@@deanmalkewich2366
I bet they do !!
I’m grasping at straws here
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog stressful time of year. March to November that is.
I know costs have to be considered, would it be more beneficial to hit you queenless units with MAQS or OAV at 4 grams per box to kill most of the phoretic mites and then combine them into another colony. Does your blowing and killing result in killing all of the mites or do they find an escape route. I know they have to hitch a ride to the next colony so depending on your method it could be very effective.
Ian here is a bad news story on treating an testing I had four years ago. In a yard of twenty colonies . I started in January I did mite washes every month on every single colony. The highest count I get was on one colony it washed five mites an ALL the rest I was washing zero an ones all year . Well in August I had purchased a new OA vaperizer an thought well
Just for kicks an giggles I would try it to see just how good it works . I run all screen bottom boards with a IPM board in the bottom. On Sept. the first i treatment every hive on that yard an came back the next morning and pulled all the IPM boards . I said SOB it looked like I had taken a jar of pepper an took the lid off and poured the pepper in the IPM boards it was I think thousands thousands of dead mites . It took I think it was eight OA treatment doing one every five days to clean up all my colonies. I still do mite washing but I don’t trust them at all . The OAV treatment saved my bacon an my bees yes it takes time but it works . I have used Apivar but still had to go back with OAV . Hope this helps
You left your hive tool under the lid of the last hive you tested.
“Hate this time of year” so glad I heard you say that, gave me a little validation.
Thank you Ian for sharing .Very good information
It looks like you left a hive tool under the lid of the last hive you washed.
Yeh and He had it sticking out the side and pulled it out at 21:44.
Don’t give up on Formic yet. It is a bit late now, but if you put in a 14 day Formic treatment immediately after the honey pull, in my experience, the queen shuts down for 7-10 days, which would still give you enough time to build winter bees back up for winter.
You are correct that we only have limited treatment option. In my opinion, you just used Formic earlier this year at the wrong time. Give it another go next year.
KRTP is awesome! I love having them available to us!
What we need is Real World Data not lab data real world data. Lab experiments are great but they can fall short of what is seen in the real world. Thanks Ian, keep up the great work.
This tech program is real world data collection and analysis. That’s the beauty with a program like this
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlogQ`W❤
If the apivar isn't able kill the exposed mites in the queenless hives I'd say it isn't going to work very well in the hives with brood.
As you talked about queen less hives it occurred to me that they may go queen less at any time. Wouldn't it make sense to keep a battery operated oxalic acid vaporizer in the truck and hit these hives with OA as soon as you find a queen less hive and then decide what to do with it. That way you reduce the chance of those mites from migrating. Just a thought.
Any pattern in your mite loads per hive based on the genetics of the queen?
I find the presence of VSH genetics is the primary predictor of mite load within a hive, even comparing units across the same yard.
It makes sense the mite counts are escalating as she gives up the brood space
My spring splits, the parent colony, and the new colonies always have fewer mites than the colonies that weren't split, I mark the splits every year, and this holds true. Colonies that have swarm through the season usually have little to no mites. Smaller colonies have fewer mites than heavy brooders. This time of year, you should sample the bees on the wall or outside frame, not the brood nest. You will have a sleepless night if you do. There isn't enough larvae for all the mites to climb back in a cell, so the mites hide on the outer edges.
I had one travel on my jacket to the house…
I did give Randy Oliver a call about this…
Was surprised it traveled and stayed alive…
But we might be helping them mites move to different areas without knowing it…
Hi Ian, I’ve heard Randy Oliver say in one of his talks that they shake every colony, I think he’s got a shaker he uses. He’s all about efficiency. Maybe you can reach out to him on his process, I wish I knew the name of the video.
Your frustration at the end is palpable… we need some better options for mite treatments.
I feel that as a unit fails in August, it would have a higher mite count due to the lack of brood for them to hide in. Similar to November, mite counts when they shut down brood production. Would it be beneficial to use OAV on these units?
Food for thought: your hives after pulling them down to singles have a massive population, that population probably requires more mite treatment than an average hive or a double because of the concentration of bees. I have heard singles hives are harder to treat with OA vapor because of this especially in the fall also strips work on contact and kill mites as they emerge. Maybe a third strip is required with such a high population? The high mite counts are just the emerging mites as the brood hatches. Apivar may need 50 days to kill the majority of mites.
Only 1 mite on around 200 bee sample is 0.5%
Very low
I suspect that the dead larvae thrown out of the entrance is the hygienic behaviour that you are looking for
Seems to be working in that colony.
Agreed
Thanks for your video
I like your thoughts. I would suggest you run the ApitableT throughout the winter on some of your hives and check your mite checks coming out of winter. I believe you will be at zero on those hives. Then run the test through your tech transfer team. Also do viral checks on them. I believe you all will have a surprise result. I’m only a user and have no other ties to the product!
Less brood = more mites. Of course we always have outliers with anything in ag. I would think with the reduced brood the effectiveness of OA will increase. If it wasn't for your long extended winters you would be in fairly good shape.
keep diving into it you will find something think like a bee, my question would be where the mites live outside the hive without a host.
U should be a queen seller too, that would be awesome!
Here in Goldenbay New Zealand where coming into spring worse varroa problems Eva larst fall I'm worried and looking at similar game plan chemical treatments not working so well I've just been vaporizering oxalic acid every week but most likely left with putting in the srips of Apivar also and keeping up vaporizering also looking into brood brakes to force the mites out and then hitting them with the vaporizer thanks for you upload your seems like a real global problem getting worse good luck with it
Hola genio es un gusto de ver los videos saludos 👏🐝🐝🐝☕
Have you tested any of your colonies where you tried out the formic?
Yes but they are still presenting a brood nest
If chemicals and medications were the answer then this problem would have been resolved many years ago. Breeding is your answer. Everything else is just a crutch to get you to that finish line. That’s not what you want to hear but it is the reality that you are physically looking at. Treating breeds a better mite not a better bee.
As we move in that direction
In one ear, out the other with the bee farmers. All this mite yapping is reliable content.
If a hive swarms in the spring and in the fall would that bee optimum brood breaks for Combate dieses control, bees have been dealing with issues for what 10 thousand years without human intervention.
20:07 Shut the hive tool in!
21:41 🪄
Is there really anything else to do but end them? What good are they to you in Manitoba in Mid Sept? Is there time to put a nuc into it? or is there even a point to that as what ever nuc you have is ready for winter where ever it is and would be about the same size come April 1.
I wish bees could rid the mites themselves selves they can be a very big pain
How are the levels of mites in the formic treated? I may have missed that sorry, very curious on that !
How are Randy Oliver queens doing ?
Randy oliver is a fool
How long will a veroamite live as adult before it dies of old age? As in never got a chance to reproduce .
God help us if they have 'winter mites"
Have you tried Apistan instead of Apivar ? I don't have a big Mite problem since using it. After Honey removal and start of the autuum dearth, I give them sugar water, adding a few drops of Tea Tree oil and a few drops of Thyme Oil & lime juice for the Vit C. After 3-4 weeks I then apply the Apistan strips. My biggest problem in the UK is Wax Moths and Giant Slugs taking up residence in the winter Hives.
Apistan is very hard on the bees when it synergies with most other chemicals , Apivar and farm pesticides
Is a 4k image of an entire frame high resolution enough to see the mites on the bees? (Obviously vert difficult to scan an image manually to count mites but with ai it sounds very possible if 4k is good enough,.)
I have a nutritionist to help formulate my dairy cow ration, an A.I. guy to help in breeding and sire selection, an agronomist for crops, etc.etc.etc... can't even get a vet to look in my colonies and a bee inspector that has never shown up! What to do?
No no, you don’t want them to provide feedback or advice, you need a tech program lead
Have you considered switching from Apivar to Apiguard for your late summer/fall treatment? I had similar issues in the fall last year with Apivar not being quite as effective as needed. I switched to Apiguard this fall.
Considering that right now , but the product that’s available to us
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog Got it. Just watched your latest entry. Hopefully you’re correct about the Apivar strip timing and that’s the issue. This was my first attempt with Aipiguard. I put 25 mgs in my singles on Aug. 30th. Followed up with another30mg.s 10 days later. I checked a handful of them between applications and didn’t see any sign of reduced egg laying. I could just be lucky though as I’ve heard that thymol can really put a stop to it. Good luck. P.S I wonder if there’s a synergistic benefit from the Apivar and your upcoming OAV treatments? Could one chemistry make the other chemistry more affective 🤷🏻♂️
I would say there drifting
Apiguard here with OA dust ups after. Good results but in the north here it has to go on right after we pull honey. Forgive me if you have Ian but have you used it? And it does retard Spring swarming to an extent. Thank you ala Mr. Bob Binnie. Luck to you Ian!
I think it’s horrible that we can’t use things that other countries can use and visa verse
Are you using alcohol or detergent in your wash
Dawn
Amitraz resistance??
With your cold climate, why is it they survive so well vs like us in subtropic? One would think they would die off in extreme cold climate and thrive in subtropic climate. But it seems to be the opposite..
Are they touching the strips?
This late you are probably looking at Formic…
OA isn’t going to do much for ya this late, your bees are making sick winter bees.
Need to cycle something besides apivar in your mites are resistant…
If you would OA vape the Queen less hive you would get a95 percent kill of mites then combine with another hive
But the other issues would lingers