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  • From: "Thomas Grizzle" <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • To: <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Varoa Infestation
  • Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 20:08:38 -0400

Hello to all,

 

OCBA has been a bit quiet so I thought I’d relay a recent experience.

 

Last weekend I had a ‘bee party’ in my backyard and Marty Hanks guided a couple beekeeping neighbors of mine and I through a careful examination of my two hives.  Both hives had been treated for varoa in early June with formic acid strips (considered organic), two per hive.  At the time, they each had two deeps (strips were placed between the two deeps) and one had a shallow on top, while the other had a medium.  Both have screened bottom boards and I did not cover the screen when I treated.  This is not because of some bright insight, I just forgot to consider this.  When we did sugar shake tests on both hives, one had about 12 mites and the other about 10 mites, so both were pretty well infested.  Also, one hive was observed to have at least one worker bee with deformed wings, a very bad sign I’m told.  We sugared both hives with powdered sugar from the top, putting a screen on top and sweeping about a cup of sugar into each hive.  Also worth mentioning, the hive with the wing issue had SHBs running around in lower numbers than last year, but enough that I was a bit worried.  The other hive had zero SHBs in the top two boxes (medium supers) but were confining the SHBs just in the deeps for some reason.  It was a weird hive, with honey only in the top super, then the next super down was rather empty of honey or pollen, then the middle deep was full of brood and no honey or pollen, then the bottom deep was just loaded with pollen, no brood or honey.  Marty suggested I consider rearranging the boxes as winter approaches, depending upon how it looked after the nectar flow, but putting the brood on the bottom, then pollen and honey above and/or around it.

 

Today I went back into both hives and slid in the piece of plastic that is just below the bottom board screening, thinking it was possible that the June treatment with formic acid may not have achieved a high enough dose/exposure because the bottom board was left open.  Since I now have two deeps and two shallows on one and two deeps and two mediums on the other, I decided to put three strips into each hive, with one strip on the top of the second deep and two strips on the top of the first deep.  This eve there were hundreds of bees on the outside of each hive, trying to escape the fumes I suspect.  It almost looked like they were swarming.

 

I will try to remember to relay what happens.  I am so far failing to effectively treat varoa, but am hopeful this time will do the trick.  Thanks, in advance, for any thoughts or comments.

 

Tom Grizzle



  • [ocba] Varoa Infestation, Thomas Grizzle, 08/28/2013

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