Deformed wings

[Taylor810]

I check my hives today and I found 1-2 bees in front of each of my 3 hives with deformed or shredded wings. These hives were started this spring from packages. Should I be concerned and treat? I have Mite Away II and the daytime temps for the next week is going to be in the 60-70's. If I treat with Mite Away II can I place the pads on top of the inner cover? I did not purchase the shims.

[KQ6AR]

Hi Taylor,
Did you do a mite count? That will tell you if mites are the problem.

[Axtmann]

Finding bees with deformed wings mean your hive has a big mite problem. You should do something yesterday.

[Liz Corbett]

Hi!
You need to treat right away with the MiteAway II. BUT, you DO NEED THE 1 1/2 " shims and 2 - 1/2 " sticks to set the pads on on top of your brood chamber. Holes face down into the brood chamber. You need the shim/rim and the sticks in order to allow the pad to evaporate properly. Putting the pad on the inner cover will not allow it to evaporate properly. You won't get a good treatment. Knock together some shims in a hurry and get your pads on. The temperatures are perfect for treatment.
If you don't have any sticks, use straight 1/2" diameter twigs, anything to keep the holes up off the top bars. Leave the pads on for 21 days, front entrance wide open, top entrance closed. Make sure you wear chemical resistant nitrile, PVC or neoprene gloves to handle the pad.

Deformed wings are a sign of heavy mite infestation and virus infection in your hives.

Liz Corbett
NOD Apiary Products
makers of MiteAway II formic acid pads.

[oldenglish]

I started to see mites in my strongest hive about a month ago, due to other committments I was not able to treat at the time. I am only using powdered sugar. Sunday all my hives got the first of three treatments. Monday I found bees with shrivelled wings on the ground in front of the hive (only 1 hive so far) hopefully the treatments will help as obviously it is a bad infestation.
So much for first year beeks not having to worry about mites, somebody told me that as a package interupts the brood cycle and that most packages are heavily treated you dont have a problem in the first year, its usually the second year that gets you.
Right now I am wondering where they came from (I am pretty remote) I am also wondering if going foundationless which causes you to have a much larger drone count attributed to the problem ?

[metrosean]

Hey Taylor,
We just started a new bee club across the river from you in Milford, PA. At our bee club meeting last night we had a big discussion on the use of Mite Away . About half the people use it and half want nothing to do with it. If I was going to use it ( I would not) I would at least take off any honey suppers first. Good luck

[honeyshack]

I've used MA2 and liked it.
You need the sticks and the shims. Pull all supers is a given.

Contact nod for all your questions. Looks like there is a nod rep on this site.

[PA Pete]

A longer-term suggestion...

Consider acquiring feral bees via swarm calls, removals, etc, then test them to select lines that do well without treatment. See some of the other threads for (lots of) details (and opinions) on how to do this. I do it the easy way - if a hive survives, I keep it. If it struggles or dies, I re-queen or just re-populate with a new removal/swarm.

I know this isn't really the answer you wanted - just a suggestion to make your life easier longer-term.

Good luck!

-Pete

[honeyshack]

Here where i live, the eggs laid starting mid August are the bees that survive the winter. If you have K wing now, your chances of survival are not that great depending on the # of k wing about to emerge. I would maybe uncap some cells and see what the soon to hatch bees look like.
I had a hive like this last year. I found several k wings roaming the frames. So i uncapped several brood. There was a lot of deformed bees.
Here is what i did...very controversial here on the board but i felt it was in the best interest in my bee yard.
Because the disease was in several in fact most of the capped brood, I sealed the hive and brought it home. Dropped the hive by the burning pile, and burnt every last frame and all the bees.
Why?
- because i did not want to put the frames with the infected bees in another hive.
- i felt that the hive was to far gone to survive the winter so i did not want to spend the $ treating and feeding only to have the hive die any how
- I did not want any bees robbing this hive and spreading the virus to other hives

In my opinion, when it comes to disease, frames are cheap. 20 frames veruse 25 hives in a yard dieing over winter due to robbing of a sick hive...I take destroying one hive.

monitoring varroa can be easy in the summer. I take the comb uncapping - scratching fork and keep one in my tool chest all the time. When i work a hive, I pull out capped drones and see if there are varroa on the brood. It is a good indication of what the varroa are like. I do it each time i open a hive, and do several hives in a yard. Never do the same hive or try not to do the same hive in two consecutive visits. I also cheack a hive this way, if i feel it is not performing the same as the rest of the yard. This test does not give you a % of what the varroa infestation is, however, if there are varroa in the drone brood, you know you have a problem. I have seen where i find one in a hive, not too bad, can wait until fall...if late in the summer. But when you see many, or several mites on back of individual capped drones, you have a real problem and might have to take that hive out of production and get some sort of treatment on the hive.

Good luck in your decision

[Taylor810]

Great. Thanks for all of you suggestions. I treated the hives with MA II today. The weather is going to be ideal for the next week.