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My winter configuration is two ten frame deeps and one medium. How many Apivar strips per hive? Is it 4 or 6 strips? I’ve looked at the directions and I’m a little confused on what to do. Thanks in advance.
Yep. Unless you can reduce them down to a single box where it will only cost you $6.$12-$18 per hive just for a single mite treatment?
One treatment is all it takes if properly done$12-$18 per hive just for a single mite treatment?
I can attest to the easy factor with apivar. It surely is easy, and if there was a way for me to make my own apivar strips, I'd do it. But as of now, only that one company sells these, and for a remarkably high price (in my opinion).its certainly pricey but effective.
For me with 25 hives 23x 10 F deeps and 18 michael palmer style 4/4/4 nucs i use 136 strips. ($367.20 for the late summer/early fall treatment). Is it expensive? probably not if it prevents the death of 2 hives it has paid for itself.
I agree with you do what works.Before splits in the spring, I do alcohol washes of all my hives and do OAV series treatments of those indicating mite loads with a ProVap 110 (shout out to snl) to try to get my mites under control before I split and put supers on the hives. By late March, early April, I have my supers on and they will usually not come off until mid to late July. As soon as my supers come off, I put in Apivar strips. When the Apivar strips come out of my hives, I do alcohol washes again. I rarely find more than 2 mites in my alcohol wash after Apivar treatment, but in the rare instances I do, I have treated with OAV series. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I do a single shot of OAV in all my hives with no pre- or post-treatment monitoring. In February, the cycle starts over.
I run between 20 and 30 hives. I have lost one to mite load in the past 4 years, and that one was due to beekeeper procrastination. Prior to this treatment regimen, I struggled.
So, 1 Apivar treatment and 1 single OAV treatment done prophylacticly each year, with 2 possible OAV series treatments performed if indicated after monitoring.
May seem like a lot, but I have brood in my hives all year long.
I think we all do what works for us. This seems to work for me.
I agree with you do what works.Before splits in the spring, I do alcohol washes of all my hives and do OAV series treatments of those indicating mite loads with a ProVap 110 (shout out to snl) to try to get my mites under control before I split and put supers on the hives. By late March, early April, I have my supers on and they will usually not come off until mid to late July. As soon as my supers come off, I put in Apivar strips. When the Apivar strips come out of my hives, I do alcohol washes again. I rarely find more than 2 mites in my alcohol wash after Apivar treatment, but in the rare instances I do, I have treated with OAV series. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I do a single shot of OAV in all my hives with no pre- or post-treatment monitoring. In February, the cycle starts over.
I run between 20 and 30 hives. I have lost one to mite load in the past 4 years, and that one was due to beekeeper procrastination. Prior to this treatment regimen, I struggled.
So, 1 Apivar treatment and 1 single OAV treatment done prophylacticly each year, with 2 possible OAV series treatments performed if indicated after monitoring.
May seem like a lot, but I have brood in my hives all year long.
I think we all do what works for us. This seems to work for me.
yeah even here its tough lol we are watching the weather forecasts like a hawk to pick out the 10day stretches with temps less than 85. Ah well if beekeeping were easy everyone would do it lolaran: I would probably be running something almost identical to you if I could use formic in my climate. Formic with supers on in mid-summer would be ideal, but it is 100F here and I would wreck my hives. I have gassed out hives even with Thymol in October due to temps.
Wow, that seems like a crazy amount of treatment.I agree with you do what works.
I do OAV in the spring, formic pro mid summer and apivar at about the end of august after the last of the supers are taken and exctracted. Then they get 4 rounds of OAV 5 days apart in late october early november and one final single shot of OAV in December when broodless.
Last year i lost no hives at all thankfully.
This year i have a lot more hives so obviously the treatment is more expensive however i also harvested 800+lbs of honey and sold a bunch of nucs so the economics of treating and NOT losing hives to mites still adds up for me.
well i certainly appreciate your opinion mate. However i will continue to do what keeps my bees alive. My mite counts are NOT zero despite these treatments.Wow, that seems like a crazy amount of treatment.
Depending on your mite count and concern for using the same treatment to ofton.Wow, that seems like a crazy amount of treatment.