Finally broke down

[dragonfly]

Well, I've been a member for about three years, and don't post very often because we spent two years building a house. Anyway, any of you old-timers may remember my speaking of the Rambo hive I acquired that had been untreated and untended for at least five years prior to when I got them 3 yrs ago. I have treated them solely with organic treatments up until now. Their mite counts had consistently been less than 10 mites in a 24 hour period. I finally broke down and decided to treat with Apistan when a mite count in mid-August was 35. So... I did a mite count 24 hrs after placing the strips. Approx 250 mites. 1 week later, I did another 24 hour count, expecting to find at least 100 mites. Zero. I did another count this morning. Again zero mites. Does this indicate that the infestation was (hopefully) not as bad as I thought? I plan to leave the strips in for the full treatment period. This area has not proved to be a good honey-production area, so I don't plan to harvest any honey. I just like beekeeping for the love of the hobby and to pollinate my garden. Any input?

[Michael Bush]

>So... I did a mite count 24 hrs after placing the strips. Approx 250 mites.

Either you don't have a lot of mites or they are resistant.

> 1 week later, I did another 24 hour count, expecting to find at least 100 mites. Zero. I did another count this morning. Again zero mites. Does this indicate that the infestation was (hopefully) not as bad as I thought?

I wouldn't call 250 total mites bad. A bad infestation is thousands.

> I plan to leave the strips in for the full treatment period.

Is there brood in the hive? If not you could pull them earlier. If there is, you should leave them the full treatment period.

[dragonfly]

I doubt the hive has resistant mites due to the fact that this is the first "chemical" treatment in at least eight years, possibly longer. Yes, there's brood in the hive- not an outstanding amount, but brood none-the-less. I plan to continue weekly counts to see what happens. It may just be that this hive has really good hygienic habits. It appears very healthy based on honey stores, activity, and general health, so I'm hoping the mite counts were just lower than I thought. Thanks for the input.

[dragonfly]

4th count: zero mites. Sure hope this trend holds out.

[Dave W]

dragonfly . . .

If the mites in your hive came from someone else's hives that were treated many, many times w/ Apistan or worse, if they used some other form of fluvalinate, they COULD be resistant as Michael Bush indicated. A "natural drop" of 35 mites per 24hrs does not sound like a heavy infestation. But usually w/ Apistan, you get some mites falling for at least 14-15 days after the strips were installed and even resistant mites die of old age and thus drop too.

Zero doesnt seam like an option smile.gif

[dragonfly]

Dave, thanks for the information, but if there were resistant mites in the hive, would there not still be a natural mite drop that would be detectable? (as in live resistant mites dropping through the screen?)
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but just surprised at the lack of mites when I feared the infestation was much heavier.

[Dave W]

dragonfly . . .

>I'm not trying to be argumentative . . .
Please, always be "argumentative". Just because I say so, doesnt make it so. smile.gif

>if there were resistant mites in the hive, would there not still be a natural mite drop that would be detectable? . . .
Yes. I tried to say that w/ the words, "even resistant mites die of old age and thus drop too".

If your "count" is still zero, maybe you dont have any hatching bee brood that contains mites and the approx 250 was all the mites in the hive.
Hard for me to believe, but possible, I guess smile.gif

W/ a mid-August natural drop of 35, I would expect more than a total of 250 mites to be in the hive, but possible, I guess smile.gif

Another members' (longarm) hive had a drop of 71 and approx 7,000 mites were removed from that hive.

[beegee]

I'm going to have to break down and treat my hives with Check-Mite, but I don't have a bad varroa problem. I need to get rid of the SHB. I'm placing Hood beetle traps in each hive hoping to abate them somewhat.

[dragonfly]

"Another members' (longarm) hive had a drop of 71 and approx 7,000 mites were removed from that hive."

Yeah, keeping up with that thread was basically what prompted me to treat this hive. Ordinarily, based on what I've read through the years, I would not have been alarmed at 35 mites, but it seems that several on this board get concerned with any count beyond 20-30. Thanks for the input.

[gingerbee]

Who sells hive beetle traps?

[kenpkr]

hood beetle trap (http://www.beeequipment.com/products.asp?pcode=296)

West hive beetle trap (https://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=724)

[dragonfly]

5th count: zero mites

[Dave W]

dragonfly . . .

Please describe this hives "bee population"?

[dragonfly]

Do you mean how many bees, percentage of brood, honey stores, or what exactly? I will be glad to provide whatever info you need.

[Dave W]

>how many bees, percentage of brood, honey stores . . .
All of the above would be nice smile.gif

I am very interested in why your count is zero.

You posted a count on Sep 21st as your 4th count and a count on Sep 28th as your 5th, was your sticky board under the screen for 7 days?

[dragonfly]

No, these are just 24 hour counts on a weekly basis. I will get into the hive today when it warms up a little more and post back with more specific information.

[Dave W]

You can leave the sticky board under the screen for a full week, remove and count, then divide the total number by 7 (day screen was in place) and that will give you a "24hr" count.

A sticky board that in place for ONE 24hr period and a board thats in place for SEVEN 24hr periods may show different results.

If you had 3 mites that fell only Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday smile.gif but you didnt insert the board until Thursday, your board would always show zero mites smile.gif

[dragonfly]

Good point, but I was concerned that if I left the sticky board in place for several days, there would be so much hive debris that I couldn't see the mites well enough to count. Anyway, I'll try it next week. As for bee numbers, I estimate 30-35,000 based on the bees covering the frames and activity in and out of the hive, which I am aware can be very inaccurate. The hive has three mediums. The bottom one is not used much at this time, but has a couple of frames with a small amount of brood in the center section. The center one has 6 or 7 frames with 40-50% brood. The top super is primarily honey with what I would estimate to be about 10% brood. I have been feeding them 1:1 with a honey b healthy equivalent that I make to encourage brood rearing, and that has really picked up greatly over the past monthly.

[Dave W]

This time of year, I can leave my sticky board in place for 7 days and still be able to see the mite clearly. (If 7 is to many, do 5 smile.gif ) As the "season" slows even more, I can leave it in place for a whole month from about Dec through Feb.

Please give us a "week" count.

[dragonfly]

week count: 2 mites

[Dave W]

Seeeeee . . . you DO have mites smile.gif

Boy, sure wish I had a hive like yours.

If thats 2 mites in 7 days, you could say you have a 24-hr count of .3

[JohnK and Sheri]

I am thinking, hoping, maybe the industry is turning the corner a bit on the mite issue. I am happy to say we are also finding NO mites. It was hard for us to believe, but the state inspector was blown away, he kept trying but couldn't find a one. I have heard other anecdotal reports of low mite counts as well. Maybe beekeeper complacency helped lead to such high losses last year. I know it did in our case, we lost a bunch. We treated aggressively last winter/early spring, with no brood in the hives and I guess this made a huge difference.
Sheri

[dragonfly]

Dave, I don't remember if you were on this site when I first acquired this hive of bees. It was my first year beekeeping, and I already had two other hives, one was a package, and the other was a complete hive I bought from a local older beekeeper. I had it in my head that I was not going to use "chemicals" because I garden organically and I just had a personal aversion to using pesticides in a beehive. Anyway, the hive was given to me by the owner of a local nursery. It had been out at the back of their property when they bought the place, left by the previous owners. It had not been tended for at least five years, and was still alive, so I figured they must have had some natural ability to tolerate mites. The problem was they had ATTITUDE, and I affectionately named them the Rambo Gals. I got plenty of advice to requeen them, but I did not because they were obviously (to me) tough in more ways than one. The first time I went to transport them to my house, I was stung repeatedly through my suit and gloves. When I went back to get them, I geared up with thick clothing under my beesuit and used the thick rubber coated gloves and rubber boots. They were extremely defensive, and I even sent a sample to A&M to make sure they weren't AHB's. Anyway, long story short smile.gif , they have survived with the use of only essential oil feedings and paper inserts up until now. I lost two hives to mites, not realizing the extent of infestation, probably in part because I was and still am new at this. They have requeened themselves once that I know of, and swarmed once that I know of, but I don't mind them doing what comes naturally, and I figure there's probably some other gardener nearby that may benefit from their pollination. This area has not proved to be good for honey production, so I don't agressively build up my beeyard. I originally wanted them just for pollination purposes anyway. Thanks for all your help, and I'll be interested to see how they fare for the next couple of years.

[Dave W]

dragonfly . . .

Thanx for the "history".

Again, I sure wish I had your hive smile.gif

[Doctus Apis]

Dragonfly,
What is your honey-b-healthy equivalent recipe? I'm all for homemade, small batch treatments.
Thanks,
Mark

[Dave W]

Doctus Apis . . .

>What is your honey-b-healthy equivalent recipe? . . .
Try this:
http://www.beesource.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000024.html

[Doctus Apis]

Thanks Dave!
:D

[lazybeestudio.com]

If you need spearmint or lemongrass oil (or Honey-B-Healthy for that matter) I can supply them to you.

http://www.lazybeestudio.com - (866) LAZY-BEE (866) 529-9233

[dragonfly]

Sorry, Doctus. I didn't see much interest in this thread, so I stopped checking it. The recipe I use is as follows:

5 cups water
2 2/1# sugar
15 drops each of spearmint and lemon grass oils
1/8- 1/4 tsp of lecithin granules dissolved in very very hot water ( bring to a boil, turn off the heat, and stir in the granules) and strained into the syrup feeding. It's the recipe I have used since I first started beekeeping.

BTW, I removed the strips in late October and placed a sticky board under the hive for 19 days. The mite count was 4.

[ November 30, 2006, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: dragonfly ]

[dogcat]

Dragonfly the receipe you state will how many hives and if I want to feed a 100 hives what would the ratio be ? 100 times what you stae. The stuff is great but very expensive,I need to mix my own. Thank you

[dragonfly]

dogcat- the primary cost is in the sugar, imo. I buy lecithin granules from a local health food store, and I am still using the can I bought over 4 years ago (and there's lots of it still in the can). I don't remember the cost, but I bet it was under 10 dollars. The essential oils run 8-15 dollars depending on the particular type of oil, but they last a long time as well. I've never bought real HBH. How much is it, and how much do you use in a quart or gallon of syrup feeding?