1. How often are you sampling for mites?
2. What sampling method do you use?
3. What is your treatment threshold?preview-blocker.popup
Search
May 20, 2020
Varroa Mite Monitoring
Varroa Mite Monitoring
7 comments
0
APALACHEE BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION
APALACHEE BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION
Trying to do this monthly, at least every two months.
Powdered sugar roll.
3 per 100 bees.
i am curious as to how serious Apalachee members consider Varroa monitoring. 18 or so years ago one could treat once a year and be fairly successful. No longer the case anymore. Mite levels rebound quickly and often treatments fail for one reason or another. Neglecting to monitor mite levels and have a treatment plan is a sure recipe for failure at beekeeping. We use a continuous sampling plan where each bee yard gets sampled at least monthly using alcohol wash. We sample 10-20% of hives in a yard. 2.5 % infestation rate is threshold Much easier to knock them down at that level than to correct at 6% or higher.
I am trying to sample every 3 months using alcohol wash with 70 percent or better alcohol and washing twice as I usually pick up another one or two on second wash. I am ok with 3 percent threshold if strong.
We need to do our first check soon and would appreciate someone helping us to make sure we are doing it correctly. I would prefer the sugar shake method. Does anyone have the equipment needed or suggest a place to get the Screen jar lid? Thanks
+Hi Melissa,
Do you have a wide mouth Ball jar? I have some of the wire screen you could use to fit in the lid. Also, the videos here give a good idea on how to do the powdered sugar roll.
https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroa/
You can contact me at jriven00@embarqmail.com.
Debbie
I think I have all the supplies now, thanks to my neighbor.
Sporadically. And always before my treatment windows.
Alcohol.
Having varroa.
I'm pretty much going to treat 3 times a year no matter what: in spring, when the supers come off in July and in late fall regardless of the number of mites. I'm not removing supers in the middle of a season because of mite loads, thats just going to cause my bees to run out of space and swarm, which might be a good thing to reduce the mite load but not what I want to happen.
If I really ran through and entire apiary and none of the hives had any mites I might skip treatment but that hasn't happened yet. And since all the products say treat a whole apiary if one has mites they all get treated anyway because there is always that one hive.
My testing is more to see how many mites I have before treatment so I can know if it worked when I test afterwards and don't have to try something else.