opinions please varroa severe problem

[honeyshack]

I would welcome several opinions please
Background
this will be my 5th year in beekeeping
bought alot of hives this year (expansion)
one hive having severe problems

I had several hives this spring with high might levels 4.3% tested at the lab along with test for AFB and Nosema and Tracheal mites
rest of the tests came back neg but with less than 1% nosema
The hives in trouble i treated with the icing sugar method for 4-5 weeks. I have seen a increase in hive strength. Enough to sustain them until fall treatment which will be soon.
One hive fell through the cracks and got missed. It's in a poor yard site. We have has near 10" of rain + since the beginning of july. The yard is damp but not wet. It is lower land. The hives there are not as well off in the way of production but not bad. I did a pull of drone brood in several hives and the mites will explode when the drones hatch. I start treating hopefully the first week of September.
HOwever, back to this one hive that fell through the cracks. It missed the icing sugar treatments. Yesterday i was in there and the foragers what is left were out working, the nurse bees slow and awkward and deformed wings. I knew right away Varroa problems. Did not see any bees with more than 1 mite and only a few workers with a mite on them, but uncapped some drones and wow.
This hive has not alot of bees but alot of new eggs and larva. Like the queen either got superceded or swarmed. Hard to believe this hive swarmed as it went into the flow weak.

Here are my options
1. Destroy the bees and frames. To far gone. Keep the boxes and boards and clean real well. Let the severly cold winter do the rest
cost 20 frames of drawn comb (What i paid at auction with boxes) $28.00
replacement nuc in the spring from my bees (hope)
---------------------------------------------------------------
2. Replace the queen with a varroa resistant queen. $20.00
Formic maybe 2 treatments at $3.75 a treatment $7.50 OR
Check mite and formic treatment back to back $6.50
Syrup 1to 1 to simulate a honey flow to get the
queen to lay obscene amount of eggs before winter$6.00
5-7 gallons of 2 to 1 syrup for winter feed $22.95
5 sticky boards for testing $20.00
pollen patties $2.6
Total cost $79.05
Not to mention the labour and the risk if it fails
I should say there is check mite resistance in Canada. So a treatment with check mite might not work completely.
Formic will work if the levels are not obscenly high. If they are, 2 treatments may be required or one check mite and one formic following the checkmite. (advice from the department of ag apiary office off the record)

If this were a bull, and the cost was near the cost of purchasing a new bull, the sick bull would be history. End of story. Cost out weighing the production as well as what could happpen if this bull fails during his busy season.
The financial side says destroy, because of the slim margin it will make it through our harsh winter. Cost/production/profit margin. The softy in me says give it a shot what have i got to lose but $.
Opinions please and thank you.

[honeyshack]

I should note that i made a observation about the deformed bees. there are not enough bees to look after the eggs that are laid. This would lead me to believe that they, the eggs and larva, are not getting the protien they need and thus come out small and deformed with awkward movements...thoughts?

[JPK1NH]

If the queen is laying like gangbusters then whats the harm in trying to help her make it through.

Do you have a screened bottom board on this hive? If not thats one of the first things I would do....it will help with the humidity issue in the hive along with helping to eliminate mites that fall off bees to be ejected from the hive (ie prevent them from latching onto a new host)....it only helps the situation and cannot hurt.....you can partially cover it for winter.

Also consider adding either a top entrance or a screened vent hole on the back side to help with ventilation and humidity issues in the hive.

I would treat using the method of personal choice.

Personally I'm trying to avoid some of the nastier chems by using powdered sugar treatments for varroa and menthol for t-mites before it starts to cool off.

Consider throwing in a frame of pierco drone foundation to help with the varroa issues...just remember to pull it and freeze it before they hatch.

Throw in a pollen patty to help them raise additional bees to get population up, a veg shortening/sugar patty to help prevent additional infestation and consider throwing in a frame of capped brood to give them a population boost to get over the hump.....and feed feed feed for the remainder of the season.

Might cost you $25 total and a few hours of work but you might get a good hive out of it if the queen is laying like you say.

Next year maybe consider working on regressing to smaller cell to help with the mite issues.

[honeyshack]

so i approached this hive with the intent to save it. I wanted to see just how much was needed to sav this hive, and if it could be saved.
When i went into the hive a couple of days ago, it was cloudy and close to rainy. So the foragers were not out much, the hive looked fuller and busier. But did note that there were few bees looking after the brood. The hive was also a bit crusty as to the type of day i was poking through the hive

today, bright sunshine.
We brought the hive home.
We went through it with a fine tooth comb.
1. checked for AFB - nothing
2. Checked the eggs, three frames with eggs and young larva, not bad pattern, capped brood. Some drones, and if all was added up, 4 frames of worker bee capped brood.
3. nurse bees rather small and deformed, slow and sluggish
4. did not find the queen
5 poor honey production
6. all the bees were on the botttom of the frames eating the uncapped honey
7. little bees on the brood and larva and eggs looking after them
8. dead bees and drones that tried to get out of the cells when hatched. The could not get out. Stuck. they had their tongue out.
9. about 12 frames of honey both capped and uncapped in the brood chambers and a half filled supper. I just pulled honey from that yard and averaged 1 1/2 supers from the yard with one full super left on as a preventative for the queen moving up.
10. poked the drone brood to check for mites...way to many.
11. if i added up all the bees they might have fillled a nuc.

So, i looked at it from a financial stand point. I mean, in the end, beekeeping is farming and it is a business and I'm in the business to make, to do my best to make money if i can.
If this were a bull or a cow, and it was open, severly sick, it would be euthanized or treated once, withdrawl time obsevered and if it was better, ship direct for slaughter rail grade.
So i euthanized the hive. I burnt the frames because i did not want robbing going on and spreading the varroa to healthy hives. I did not want the bees to find a new home just to make another hive sick.
I have not the means to test for nosema, but that could have been a possiblity with the hive so weak.
i scorched the bottom board, and boxes incase of contamination.

I was heartbroken at destroying this hive. It was a real hard call to make.
but this hive had less than a 20% chance of surviving our winters. It had a less of a chance at making honey next year. i could buy a nuc next spring for 30% more that what it would have cost me to treat and gained near 150# of honey from that nuc, maybe more.
what a day:(

[Putz]

I'm very sorry for your loss but feel you made a good decision to sacrafice the weak to help protect your stronger hives. I'm hoping your remaining hives do well over winter and give you a gangbuster year next year :)

I've had no problems with varroa so far this year, and I attribute it to my change in management this year. I run full screen bottom boards that I made, they have no sticky boards so the hives get full ventilation and room for mites to drop.

I use powder sugar treatments once a month using 1/2 cup per box over top frames of each box using a flour sifter, then brushing the powder back and forth to cause it to drop between the frames. I treat every 2 weeks if symptoms of mites are noticed, and would treat once per week if I had an outbreak but have not had that happen this year.

I feed pollen patties whenever the stored pollen drops below 1 full frame per box in the broodnest, I think this has kept the bees quite healthy and vigorous.

I feed 1:1 sugar:water at a trickle rate whenever there is a nectar dearth.

I keep one frame of pierco drone comb in each broodnest. I have not had to destroy any drone brood this year at all, the drones have been nice and healthy for the most part. I feel the bees like having drones and if they don't, they fill the frames with nectar which is fine by me. If I had a varroa outbreak, then I would most definately destroy drone brood as a treatment.

Best of luck to you and to everyone in combating the dratted varroa!

[jean-marc]

Honeyshack:

I think from a financial point of view you probably made the right call. From an educational point of view it could have been interesting to try and rescue the hive. I've been in a siilar situation but the hives had way more bees. Actually at first glance they looked good, but the nurse bees had varroa damage. I managed to save some not all.

Jean-Marc

[Ian]

Sometimes its better to cut your losses,
Probably good you removed it from your yard, it would be a great way to introduce vorroa throughout your yard. They say the strongest will catch the sickness first.

Good idea to have a sick yard.
But why not attempt to relieve the problem in your sick yard? You had nothing to loose.

[Ian]

>>So i euthanized the hive. I burnt the frames because i did not want robbing going on and spreading the varroa to healthy hives.

Why burn the frames in a v mite infection?

[honeyshack]

i burnt the frames because most were wooden frames that were very dark and thick walled with wax foundation. The brood was deformed and i did not want to spread the disease. As well there was robbing starting from the healthy hives. I was worried that the varroa would spread. As well i was worried about nosema in this sick hive. I had no means to test, but because of the severity of the deformity and lack of healthy bees, and that they were stressed because of varroa, maybe a secondary infection might have set in. I could test for AFB and did so, but nosema was another matter.
I decided for $28.00, the cost of replacing the frames, I could err on the side of caution
The yard that seems to not do so well this year because they have varroa in the drone brood, I can not treat with anything with the honey supers on. But in a couple of weeks i will be able to treat when i bring the hives home. They are medium as to strength so i hope they can hold out to September 1. They will be the first yard site done. As well, there are a couple of beekeepers yard sites within close proximity (2-3 miles) to this site. If they have varroa, i would be fighting a loosing battle by treating them and then they get re infected by communinin with these other bees. My site at home creates some distance between these other sites.
I am going to do the natural drop test on that site and a few others today to see how bad it truely is.

[honeyshack]

Good idea to have a sick yard.
But why not attempt to relieve the problem in your sick yard? You had nothing to loose.

Just money that could be spent better somewhere else on a hive that would be almost guarranteed to make it through the winter.
We have gained much experience in dealing with sick animals these last 13 years in raising cattle. Since BSE we have learned that treating animals can actually be more expensive and costly than making that hard call. Money is tight, fuel is high, fertilizer is out of this world, drug costs and vet calls are not cheap. Putting up feed is expensive. In order to make it in this new erra of farming, things needed to change. Putting a cost on everything, deciding where to spend the money, how to spend the money was one of those changes. We put a cap on treating sick cows, we changed our management decisions. In putting caps on how much to pay to get an animal well, we have increased the health in our herd, and treat less costing less. We still have a herd health program that we will not give up, we spend less in treating sick animals.
I can give many examples
Not just in cows but with the debate of sisal VS plastic twine.
These things learned, we have applied to beekeeping in hopes of staying ahead of the game. It sounds harsh, I mean people think of cows as pets sometimes, and for us we have several. But in the end, farming whether it be grain, oilseed, cattle, chickens, pork, bees, is still a business. Approaching it as a business is the only way we are going to succeed at making any money or survive these tough times. Doing cost analysis, figuring where we need to spend, where we need to cut our losses or how much we spent, VS what we made in income is part of that business. We might not make piles of money to make us rich, but a few bucks to get by and live ok

[honeyshack]

I should say though, had this hive come out of winter like this, I would have tried to save it. I would have tried because i had the summer for it to build its numbers to get ready for winter. It would have probably made some honey to offset the cost of treating. Not to mention all the hives would recieve their course of the health program so they would not be suseptable to getting sick from this hive.
But because we are so close to getting ready for winter, entering into fall management, the chance this hive would be ready for our harsh winters wintered outdoors, would be slim to none. The chance this hive would infect others would be to big of a risk IMO

[Barry]

Good idea to have a sick yard.
But why not attempt to relieve the problem in your sick yard? You had nothing to loose.

I remember talking with Dennis Murrell one time (ex commercial bee guy) and he told me in his experience, no matter what you do management wise (within reason), you will still have a fairly consistent breakdown of bee health. Example: 10% die off each year, 30% below average producers, 40% average producers, and 20% above average producers. So, cutting your loss, sending them to a sick yard and not putting a lot of effort into them may be a smart business move.

[Ian]

Thats what I do during my spring work.

One framers, I shake out, but those two and three framers must hold part of my heart becasue I gather them as I work and send them to a seperate yard. Some times I requeen, treat to what ever stress has gotten them down. Most part just leave them alone.
You know, that yard usually produces honey near the end of the season, and winters just as well as the rest. No time spent other than that I would of normally spent on them, and I have the hives to winter, and honey to boot.
I dont tolerate AFB, they all get burnt whenever I find them.

This time of year, shake them out. Tammy is right, cut losses. But I dont agree with burning the hive. burning infected equipment, yes. Burning old disformed comb, yes. But I doubt all the comb in the hive was infected or old.
If you have a loss of 50% or higher due to the v mite, are you going to burn all your dead loss hives? I doubt it, it just dosent make sence on a financial stand point. A heavier comb cull in those loss hives makes sence.

[Ian]

What I ment with a sick yard this time of year, is if your not going to shake them out in your yard, take them back to a seperate yard, and shake them out or introduce the last of the brood to a single hive. Reclaim your equipment, and treat the sick hive in the fall.
YOur yards will not be infected from a gerneral shake out in the yard and you can keep the equipment in storage rather than buring it all. That hive will have a better chance surviving combined with other small failing hives than on its own