Dusting to help get rid of mites.

[CWBees]

I just dusted 4 of my hives with confectioners sugar for the first time. I tell you they were not happy about it. Little ghost bees flying around and hitting me.

How much sugar is the right amount per hive?

The hives I treated were two deeps.

Should I have treated each super sererately?

[Tom Chaudoir]

I've been using a variation of the varroa blaster (http://bwrangler.madpage.com/bee/gbla.htm). I puff both sides of each frame, then put it in a spare deep so that dusted and undusted bees don't intermingle. When all the bees on a frame are white, I call it good.

Mine don't seem to mind. The thing has to be shaken pretty often. I move it away from the frame first so they don't get spooked.

I dropped a 3 inch bolt into mine by accident. I'd been using it to push the sugar through a funnel. That bolt turned out to be a perfect agitator to stir up the dust.

[Craig W.]

I use a baby Powder bottle, and dust my bees with that.

[Hobie]

I just bought a colony from a friend. He tested for mites and found 6 in his "sugar roll" results with this colony. I wanted to combine a queenless super with this one. Do you think I should sugar the colony before combining? Opinions welcome.

[Dave W]

CWBees . . .

>How much sugar is the right amount per hive?
One cup per deep chamber.
NOTE: One pound of Domino 10x powdered sugar equals approx. 3-3/4 cups [product label, 10/05-DLW].

>Should I have treated each super sererately?
Yes. For step-by-step directions for "Dowda Method", see ABJ, 11/05, p882.

• Separate brood chambers, sift 1 cup of powdered sugar over frames of lowest box.
• Brush sugar off frames to allow sugar to fall down onto bees.
• Replace other brood chamber and distribute powdered sugar in the same way.
• Wait 5 minutes or longer, then pull out insert and look for mites. Many mites on insert equals a high mite level.
• If high mite level, hive will require sugar treatment again in a day or two [ABJ, 11/05, p882].
• Some beekeepers do this bi-weekly during spring for several weeks to eliminate V-mite population, then once a month after that. You can sugar the hive more often if you wish to do so [ABJ, 11/05, p882].

[2rubes]

I would wait a few hours to check. If you have a lot of mites, I would repeat 2 more times, 5 to 7 days apart to capture mites hatching from capped brood. It a great way to knock the mites down quickly. Last year I was dusting 3 times every other month or so. We were so infested. The first dusting, we stopped counting after 1400 mites. After October, the number dropped dramatically. I dusted about once a month and didn't separate the supers. I only did one 3 part this month in early spring and one time in early May. One time a few weeks ago. I'm just not getting many mites. After August, my plan is to treat again, probably only once if the count is still low, and then I'll start treating again if the numbers go up. 25 mites sounds like a good amount to me too. All my counts are without smoking them. That makes a big difference in the mites dropping, almost doubles it.