Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

ocba - Re: [ocba] varroa

ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Lewis Cauble <lewis AT hivebody.com>
  • To: Undisclosed-recipients: ;
  • Cc: "bees" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] varroa
  • Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 10:28:55 -0400

Mary Lou,
I was just wondering how you were monitoring the mites.  If you have used the sugar roll method or a sticky board and not found any mites, you are in good shape.  If you are looking for mites on bees and have not seen any, I'm a little worried.  I feel like by the time we start seeing mites on bees, we have already crossed the threshold of too many.  

A new beekeeper called me the other week and told me that he had not seen any mites on his bees.  I told him I'd stop by on Saturday and we would take a look.  He had 3 hives.  We did a sugar roll on the first hive and counted 17 mites (above the treatment threshold).  We sampled another hive that had a hygienic queen and the beekeeper was confident that there was not a mite issue.  We shook 20 mites out on that sample, again above the treatment threshold.

I feel like it's a little late in the year to be monitoring mites and checking stores but better late than never.  Late August is a good time to start getting a feel for the mites and deciding what hives we want to treat when the weather breaks.  Also the later in to the winter we get, the more difficult it gets to feed the bees to make up for missing stores.  Again...Better late than never.

The things I have been thinking about lately concerning getting my bees through the winter include...

1)  Monitoring and treating mites as necessary.  I will admit that I may treat hives that might not need to be treated.  If I have 10 hives in a yard, I will treat all of them.  I use formic and the treatments are less than 4 bucks each.

2)  Making sure I have a good population of bees downstairs and and good stores of honey upstairs.  I feel like just a little bit of feeding through the July/early August dearth helps to keep the queen in gear, giving a reasonable population of bees in September/October.  I am feeding a few hives right now to add weight.

3)  I am checking to make sure I have pretty good ventilation in the hives so that I do not have too much moisture in the hives.  I feel like the bees can handle the cold very well.  If they get wet, they will likely get in to trouble.

4)  Entrance reducers on to protect from mice.  I also tend to have a yellow jackets in my yards and they can be a menace in the late fall if the entrance is wide open.

I hope others will chime in with their methods for increasing the chances of getting bees through the winter. 

Remember that a package of bees is in the $80 range so investing in feeding $20 of sugar and doing a $5 mite treatment might be worthwhile (and your bees will thank you).  

Your milage may vary.

Cheers,

Lewis





On Nov 3, 2010, at 3:26 PM, Mary Lou Bethune wrote:

 
 
 
Has anyone used ApiLife Var   for varroa mite?  It’s organic.  WE don’t seem to have the mites but it looks like they are running short of honey again.  Anyone else seeing this?
WE don’t feel that we can feed them all winter. 
Mary Lou Bethune
_______________________________________________
ocba mailing list
North Carolina Beekeeping
http://www.theocba.org/



____________________________________________________________
Globe Life Insurance
$1* Buys $50,000 Life Insurance. Adults or Children. No Medical Exam.
CoverageFor1Dollar.com



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page