[gator]

Hi from central Florida! I pulled the super off one of my hives since all frames were full of honey, to spin. Trying to decide if I should put back the super with empty frames this late in the year. There are lots of bees in this hive, which is now one deep brood box. I would like to treat the brood box with Apavar now, but to do that, I need the super off for six weeks, so the Apavar doesn't get into the wax left in the super. But since there so many bees, I'm afraid if I don't give them the space back, they may swarm. (It's 80 degrees here.)
Thanks.

 

[mtnmyke]

Depends on your flow in the area. We're just starting our flow here so it's too late for me to consider using Apivar or other non honey safe treatments as I don't have 6 weeks to burn with my supers going on here shortly.

If you can't use a honey safe treatment and need to treat you may need to add another brood box to give them space, as long as all the brood is down below I don't see why you couldn't stick to 2 strips. Do a test after 6 weeks for your mite count. Perk of that, is if you run single deeps you could then split the colony.

However, if you're coming into a bloom you'd be missing out on a honey crop. You can either make honey, or make more bees...or use another treatment with the reminder to treat before your flow and not at the start of it.