Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Just treated some hives with half treatment of MAQS. We broke open some drone brood between frames (unusual for this time of year) and saw several varroa per drone. I'm glad David and I decided to check/treat.

I did a mite count last week in 2 of my hives. It was supposed to be for 24 hours, but ended up being for 48 hours, so I divided the number of mites in half and still had over 150 in one hive. I used the Apiguard treatment. It was easy to install, but will have to retreat in 2 weeks. I did see three pairs of workers hauling off what looked like dead pupae - it was past the larval stage - a few days after treatment, but that has stopped. Anyone have any experience with Apiguard? It's a thymol product.

I haven't used Apiguard, but I have used Apilife Var, another thymol treatment. It requires 3 applications (7days, 7 days, and 10 days) for a full 24 day brood cycle. The bees don't like it any better than the formic acid, but it seems to do the job. I think all of these treatments will cause some brood kill. As long as daily high temperatures do not go above the limits for treatment, this should not be too bad.

I plan on using Apiguard this year on my hives. I found the information in the link below on Apiguard helpful.

http://www.vita-europe.com/products/apiguard/

I'd like to try the sugar roll method used in the video link below to count mites. I've never used this method, feedback from anyone else who has used this method would be great.

http://youtu.be/dU06KJTxHR8?list=UUu2Nt ... kbT1okD-9Q

Don Hopkins uses the sugar roll. That's good enough for me. I don't think they have found a better way yet.

I was seeing more crawlers with DWV at the house, so I started half treatments of MAQS yesterday. Less than 24 hours into the treatment, I have some idea of where the major problem is.

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab5/ ... C01838.jpg

Hey, Rob. I think I see a mite or two in the pic.

Hope the weather stays cool for a few more days as I put a half a treatment of MAQS in 10 hives today.

I'm with you. I have half treatments of MAQS in 6 hives here at the house that I put in this morning.

I am just back from a whirlwind tour of 3 bee locations to put on half treatments of MAQS. I managed to beat the rain and the bees were not too upset about having the hives opened. The temperatures over the next 3-4 days made the timing right even if weather conditions were not ideal. A secondary bonus was determining that all the hives had good food supplies for this time of year.

I was removing MAQS pads from some hives today as well as checking for stores and brood.
I have not noticed it in the past but there wee mites, dead ones, on the MAQS.
Just thought it was a bit strange.

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... jadjl0.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... acxoau.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w45/ ... wb4abz.jpg

I am using Formic Pro for my mite treatments this year. I am going with full (2 strip ) treatments at the Cooperative Extension and at Brown Summit, and I am in the 2nd half of the 1-strip for 10 days + 1-strip for 10 days half treatment method on my hives at home. I am a little concerned that 1 hive at Brown Summit may not have the stores I would like it to have. I have been feeding bees there for a couple of weeks, and populations are good. The weight of one of the hives is still pretty light. Once the treatments are complete, I'll do an initial check on queen status and put feeders back on to start heavying up the hives for winter.

Tomorrow is day 14 of the Formic Pro treatment of my two hives. After initial worry over brood loss on the first couple of days (having never done this before), it seems to be going well. I had huge activity in front of both hives the past two days with orientation flights, lots of pollen coming in, etc.

When I go in to remove the strips, what should I be looking for - I assume eggs, brood, and queen like a normal inspection?

The label says check for supercedure one full month after the end of treatment. I guess that gives time for the replacement process to finish up if a queen does not make it through the process. The label does say that weak queens of any age may be superceded during treatment

The half treatments at home are complete and all hives are queenright for now. One does have supercedure cells, so I will keep a closer eye on it over the next month. I should be finished with the full treatment with Formic Pro at my other hives Thursday afternoon and hope the hives look as good as my home hives. If queenright, the feeders will go back on them and I will resume feeding 1:1 until early October, and at some point, switch to 2:1.

I am getting ready to do a round of OAV in hives. We are closing in on the time where brood is at its lowest and OAV is supposed to be most effective. No mite counts--just looking for activity and keeping an eye on hive weights.

I put Formic Pro strips in all hives strong enough to take them yesterday morning. I have 3-4 weak hives at the house that I have set up for OAV tomorrow morning. With these, I plan on doing 2-3 OAV applications and then either combining them all together or combining them into stronger hives when the Formic Pro comes off. I want to knock down as many mites as I can in these weaker hives before doing anything with these bees.