.....3. Check mite fall with sticky boards. When the count reaches the level of 100 per 24 hours treat with Mite Away II or the new Mite Away strips that are comming out. If you treat at a temp higher than recommended you will kill some brood but you will still kill a lot of mites. The queen will lay enough brood to make up the losses. If you are not on beans, treat in late July/August. Stay away from the hard chemical strips...
OK as a beekeeper and honey producer, I have a problem with this statement.
1. Follow direction of any treatment (quote in red) Stick with following directions...do not treat when temps excede the limits. This promotes queen failure and brood loss. Now i understand the reason why some on here post that MA2 damages the hives, and not to use during spring build up...Follow directions folks!
2. (quote in purple). In an earlier thread a poster aluded to a a beekeeper who had low mite counts. I happened to mention that low without numbers is a selective term. Just a note...if my hives reached a 100 mite drop in a day, I would pull my hair out at the way i manage my hives. And MA2 will not drop the # fast enough for this high of a mite threshold. Add to that that by the time you get these high numbers, your deformed winged virus will rear it's ugly head well before this, that Kashmir Virus, the isreal..something or other virus will be above thresholds for the bees. Basically, the hive will be sick and if the hive is not sick, the upcoming brood cycles will be damaged.
If i saw 20 in a day dropping, that hive would be pulled out of honey production and some sort of treatment would be applied.
Please read following link, adapt the time line for your area.
http://www.capabees.com/main/files/pdf/varroathreshold.pdf
please note pages 4-8 for economic threshold #. There is also a chart on page 4 that converts drop counts to % count
Note this is for the canadian praires. Our spring work starts about April 15th to May 10, and our honey flows are July and August, and we start fall prep usually by the 15 of Sept, maybe the 1st depending on the weather. Wrapped or stored inside by the 31 of october, earlier if weather is colder. Average yield is anywhere from 150# to 250# of honey per summer.
100 mites a day...no wonder hives are collapsing...