small cell and varroa

[buzzhageman]

Hi everyone,
quick question for the small cell crowd. I am a first year and am on small cell two hives with two deeps each and screened bottom boards also with an upper entrance. Should I still expect varroa and just monitor with stilcky boards or expect explosions and constantly have to try different methods to keep in check. Michael Bush would love your take as I see you as a hugh proponent to small cell

[sqkcrk]

Where did you get small cell comb the first year? You must have bought small celled bees to begin w/ I guess?

[buzzhageman]

I actually placed both packages directly on Honey super cell which is 4.9 lost one queen after about one month and requeened and have been increasing ever since but have noticed a few dropped mites

[AR Beekeeper]

If you want to know what is happening with your colonies varroa populations you should monitor your mite drop. I would not expect to see an explosion of mites, just moderate increases in the population. You need to know what the mite population has to be to cause your colonies damage. Those numbers differ from area to area. Talk with beekeepers in your area, they can fill you in on what mite drop should cause you to worry.

[Michael Bush]

> Should I still expect varroa and just monitor with stilcky boards or expect explosions and constantly have to try different methods to keep in check.

"Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed"--Alexander Pope

I try never to never expect anything. But if you want to know if something is working you measure it. I would expect small cell to take some time as you are trying to reestablish, not only natural cell size, but a healthy natural ecosystem in the hive. Once things appear stable I think monitoring is too much work. But also I would expect (there I go expecting something...) mite counts to fluctuate, even more on small cell, than large cell as the bees will have more of a preference for drones and the drone brood numbers fluctuate more than worker brood numbers. I never had a reason to treat as the numbers stayed low enough, but considered drone trapping if they did get high, which they did not.