Mites are increasing

[clintonbemrose]

In testing (drop and sugar roll) I have found that the mites are increasing in my hives. I am now increasing my fogging schedule to 2 times a week. I am using FGMO/Thymol. I think my bees are robbing my neighbors hives and he does not treat at all. They are new at beekeeping and don't want to learn. I'm sure they will lose all 5 of their hives this winter because they only are 1 hive body high.
Clint

[Jeffzhear]

Can you sneak over and treat theirs without them seeing you...I suppose that would be unethical..never mind. Wait, how about if you offer to do theirs? It would help them and you... Just a thought.

[BjornBee]

Great thread! I'll bite my lip and smile....... Ok, Ok, I lied....I'm laughing...

[clintonbemrose]

I talked to them and I helped put sticky boards on the bottom boards to do a 24 hour mite count "to see if there are mites in their hives". I lent them some books trying to educate them. Hopfully the mite counts might show them that they need to help their bees. A friend told them they didn't need more than 1 hive body and 1 supper for each hive. I did see a lot of bees on one hive with K wings when we put the sticky boards in and all hives seem weak.
Clint

[BjornBee]

Whoa now!

Your bees are robbing out your nieghbors bees, as this is your rationalization for your mite increases. And yet your in the process of doing mite counts at the same time of these very same hives.(?)
I would of thought that your nieghbors bees would of been pretty weak if being robbed, and was wondering why you commented on them surviving the winter. Bees being robbed out at this time have a very short lifespan A robbed out hive would be dead within days. But your worried about winter configurations. Another ....(?)

At this point, I'm not sure what to think. Are your bees robbing out your nieghbors bees or not? Or was this some attempt to rationalize your mite increase, laying blame to someone else?
Are you truly trying to help your nieghbor for your benefit or his? And does coming here to bash his "different" way of beekeeping really pass the "taste" test?

I'm really getting confused.....

If your mite counts continue to increase....do you continue to increase the fogging treatments? Does twice a week have a doubling effect compared to once weekly? And what about every day....just to make sure?

[Jeffzhear]

"...If your mite counts continue to increase....do you continue to increase the fogging treatments? Does twice a week have a doubling effect compared to once weekly? And what about every day....just to make sure?

It's interesting that you brought this up. I just started fogging this past Sunday (first application) and I was reading this thread yesterday and thinking to myself after reading the twice a week comment, should I be treating twice a week...so I decided this morning that I was going to send a PM to my mentor and ask him...so rather then do that, I'll ask here...Is twice a week overkill? Will it have harmful effects on the honeybees? Advice would be appreciated...Thanks

[iddee]

Why does anyone treat anything before determining a need?

If you don't know what you have, how can you treat it?

I would think you would be giving the forum your mite counts before asking about how to treat. If one hive has 3 mites and another has 3000, should I treat them both the same? Let's try to be a little more reasonable here.

[Jeffzhear]

In my case I know my mite count and need to treat, which is why I started treating last Sunday.

[iddee]

With fogging, I like to treat 3 or 4 weeks and do another mite count.

[Michael Bush]

There are always a lot of drifting drones even if there is no robbing.

[JoeMcc]

anyone have a link of the best way to determine mite levels?

joemcc

[mountainvalleybee]

hi my name is alan and we have fogged in the past but no longer have to, the way we fogged was late in the afternoon or just after dark, once a week for three to four weeks and for almost a minute per colony, if you do not fog long enough the bees will just blow the fog away just as they will smoke and it will have no effect. also we used a tube about three feet long to allow the fog to condense slightly so it would be more likely to condense in the colony, we used 1 tablespoon of wintergreen in 1 quart of mineral oil and you could in the case of daytime fogging which we also did go back into the colonies 4 to 5 hours later and find dead and dying mites on the bottom board and any on the bees were sick and falling off. if you do not fog long enough the fog will not penetrate the cluster and is next to useless, if you use wintergreen oil it is also effective against varroatosis and will clean it up also. of course the real trick is to have bees which are slightly tolerant of the mites and diseases to some degree in the first place. your normal commercial bees in most cases are not, but the ferals or mixed bees usually are. the reason for nighttime fogging was so the colony had time to recuperate and you would bee less likely to lose queens or make the colony abscond. sometimes proper fogging in the daytime, according to our tests, would run the bees out.

[clintonbemrose]

I have been fogging for 7+ years as per Dr Rodregaz and have not found this to cause the problems you describe. I only fog each hive for 5 seconds and move on to the next hive. In my first 3 years I only used FGMO but switched when Dr. Rodregaz found that addint Thymol to the FGMO helped decrease the mites even more. For the first 3 years my hive mite counts were extremly low compared to hives that were treated with other chemicals.
I fogg weekly but when I test for mites late in the Summer and Fall if the mite count is increasing I will add another fogging during the week.
You are the first person that I have heard fogging for a full Minute.
Clint

[mountainvalleybee]

as i mentioned in a message we had leaky hives so it may have taken a bit longer, the average time was closer to 30-40 or so seconds, the object is total saturation with fog coming out all cracks or entrances which it would continue to do for a while even after the fogging was terminated. if you do not saturate the hive you are doing the same thing as with the chemical strips and do not get rid of all the mites and yes then you will have to fog on a continueing basis this method allowed us to fog only for the three weeks mentioned and it lasted all year we did not have to fog every week and also did not have to use anything else in conjunction with the fog. also the wintergreen is naturally toxic to the mites and will have a continueing and lasting effect lasting at least several hours after fogging. the interval is based on the normal amount of time which the mites remain on their host before dropping off to continue their dastardly activities, this way you get all of the mites or at least most of them and do not have to fog on a weekly basis. the wintergreen also will eliminate the viruses using this method and your problems will stop, we saved colonies which were essentially dead this way the brood patterns cleaned up and you could not find hardly any mites in the brood if any we tried one puff in the entrance in hives alongside this method some of them went ahead and died and the mite counts were still high in them i am sure as you could still find mites on the bees and in the brood, however the ones we fogged this way you would have an unusual situation if you could see any mites on the bees or find any in the brood.