New Beek and another Varroa question

[coopcj7]

Wel I am new to bee keeping this year starting out with one package a caught 6 swarms.

While checking the super on the hive today I pulled out my grease board on the bottom to clean it and I found varroa mites andeither hive beetle larvae or wax moth larvae I dont know which one it was

I am not sure of the mite counting rule but I think it is around 25 in a 24 hour period. This grease board has been in place for about a month or two and I counted maybe 15 mites. But I could not find on of the "red" female varroa mites these were all dark brown-black color. Is this normal.

Also the larvae there were various sizes some that were up to 1cm long and others a couple millimeters long.

I dont want to use hazardous chemicals on this hive so any suggestions would be great.

[Robert Brenchley]

I think you need to regard treatment as routine, at least until you have a bit of experience. I know exactly what you mean about chemicals, I hate using them myself. I've used both oxalic acid (my routine winter treatment) and Apiguard, and have found them both to be effective. I haven't tried straight Thymol crystals, and I have no experience of formic acid. You'd probably be best off using one of these, as they're not persistent in comb.

What do the larvae look like? We don't have SHB in the UK - there are plenty of threads about it here - but you could easily be describing lesser wax moth. If they were whitish with no obvious legs they may well have been the latter, but with no real description I'm being cautious! I always have a few, but they don't really bother the bees at all.

[NeilV]

I would clean the insert, grease it up again and see what you have after 24 hours. If you have very few mites, I would not treat.

I can't tell whether those are SHB or wax moth larvae from your description. Have you seen SHB in the hive? If not, then you probably just have a few wax moth larvae, which should not be a big deal if the hive is strong. Wax moths do a number on weak hives, but strong hives keep them at bay.

That is really true with SHB where I live, but I know they take over and kill hives in some places. I'm not sure why, but they are not much of problem where I live.

Also, do you have a screened bottom board with an insert? If that is what you have, you do not need to keep thet insert in there all the time. I would consult your local beeks about whether to keep the SBB open in winter where you live. However, in summer the point of a screened bottom board is to keep it open. (If you don't have a screened bottom, you should consider getting screened bottom boards.)