Have you done a varroa count lately? Several beekeepers have told me their tale of whoa, of finding a substancial jump in their counts in the last couple of weeks. The picture below was a surprise to the beekeeper who sent it to me. It just shows that you get what you inspect, not what you expect!
Another beekeeper told me this morning that they tested 2 weeks ago and the mite count was 2/300. Tested today and the count was 73/300! How did that happen? My guess is somebody else’s hive nearby donated these mites to robber bees from this hive. Don’t be the neighborhood “Mite Bomb”. If test and treat!
I myself lost one hive that I delayed treating as they were making a new queen. I knew they needed treatment as I saw some bald brood in the capped brood still left and got the treatment about 3 weeks after the other hives were treated. Didn’t bother to take a count as I knew they needed to be treated. When I went back to take the treatment off, the only bee walking around in there was the queen! Other hives will get tested again this week, based on that.
Several beekeepers this year have used Apivar and watched the mite counts rise during the treatment. Why is that? I don’t know for sure, but it could be resistance and it could be they used it wrong, or it was out of date, or not stored properly or something else. But, this shows how important it is to test AFTER you treat as well as before. Make sure what you used was effective. In the case of Apivar, test during treatment, since it is such a long treatment (42-56 days).
I want to mention one more thing about the “dead out” I had in my yard. As soon as I found it I took off the 2 honey boxes and picked through them and gave those resources to other hives. I put an escape board under the brood boxes to get the robbers out and went back the next day early in the morning. That is when I found the queen. I also found a few small hive beetles. When I looked at the frames more closely, I saw the itty bitty small hive beetle larvae in the comb. YUCK! I bagged those frames up and brought them directly to the curb in time to get picked up by the garbage pick up! My trash here goes to the incinerator, so, those guys are toast! The morale of this is once again, don’t be the problem for your neighbors’ hives or even your own other hives by allowing a dead out to become a pest breeding station. There were only about 5 adult SHBs walking around. But, there were hundreds, if not thousands of larvae that would have gone out to infest other hives. All now dead and burned.
The Honey bee season is coming to an end for this year. We are all hoping to have strong healthy hives in the Spring. Don’t let your guard down now! Make sure you are testing and treating and thinking about other pests as well.
See you at the next meeting and until then, stay healthy and take care of your bees! –Grace
