Effectiveness of varroa treatment

[Alastair]

Found that bayvarol has been partially effective in some hives, and not effective at all in some hives. Nearly all hives have too many mites. Some hives close to death, some hives actually dead.

Nearly finished a complete round of all hives, pulling bayvarol and putting in Apivar. Did about 50 today, very time consuming as I've been balancing the near dead hives from the stronger, trying to get everything that is still alive through the next several months still alive.

One more day of this tommorrow and all hives will be done, but I may then revisit some sites where the worst hives were.

All this when I would not normally be doing any bee work at all, not to mention the expense.

 

[bighands]

I have wintered mine down and will not look at them un till the end of August. I caged one queen, hoping for 6 weeks but the eat through the wax and released her.No sign of any varroa and the nearest beek is 8 km away so lets hope I can get away with no varroa treatments at all.

 

[Alastair]

Just to add to that, I've been taking a lot of phone calls from hobbyist acquaintances with similar problems. The call usually starts with "hey I have a problem my hives are being overun by wasps". "Did you treat with bayvarol" I say. "Yes" comes the answer.

I tell them the wasps are the symptom, varroa mites are the disease. I ask them to treat immediately with apivar. Unfortunately many of these people do not have the resources in terms of needed spare bees etc to be able to save their hives.

 

[tristan]

Found that bayvarol has been partially effective in some hives, and not effective at all in some hives. Nearly all hives have too many mites. Some hives close to death, some hives actually dead.

has that been through all hives or just those in certain areas?

it would not surprise me at all to see resistance crop up as i suspect a lot of people have gone to using bayvarol full time to save costs over the last few years.
but on the other hand i would not be surprised to see if beeks have abandoned hives, and have quite a bit of reinvasion happening.

 

[Gino de Graaf]

Found that bayvarol has been partially effective in some hives, and not effective at all in some hives. Nearly all hives have too many mites. Some hives close to death, some hives actually dead.

Nearly finished a complete round of all hives, pulling bayvarol and putting in Apivar. Did about 50 today, very time consuming as I've been balancing the near dead hives from the stronger, trying to get everything that is still alive through the next several months still alive.

One more day of this tommorrow and all hives will be done, but I may then revisit some sites where the worst hives were.

All this when I would not normally be doing any bee work at all, not to mention the expense.

Yes, disheartening.
Are you seeing mites?
I have some sick with DWV. Figure bees had a high mite load at treatment time. Which was beginning of March. Apivar used and slow to work- the bee nest looses cohesion as DWV spreads. Slide down the tube. Not over all the sites, just handful. Have a brood break, so dribble away.

 

[Alastair]

has that been through all hives or just those in certain areas?

It's through my whole outfit, but weird thing, one hive will be riddled with mites, and yes Gino I'm seeing them, but the hive next to it will be OK. Some sites are worse than others.

I personally don't think this is down to reinvasion. Because if treatment is in place and working, it should catch invading mites also. Probably not all of them first time around, but I just can't see the numbers of mites in my hives coming from elsewhere.

Could be wrong of course, but if it is reinvasion, there would have to be massive carnage happening somewhere else to supply that many mites.

I've also had a lot of queens shut down, even when population is really low, so low, that even if they start brooding again, they will be lucky to support enough brood to survive. This is not normal in my area. Incase there is some other issue causing that, I am not saving those hives, other than to put an apivar strip in to prevent them becoming a mite bomb if they die.

I am wondering if the bad habits of some beekeepers only using 2 bayvarol strips per box is finally coming home to roost.

 

[Alastair]

I got around 7 grand worth of bayvarol sitting in boxes, not sure what to do with it.

Anyone up for some 1/2 price bayvarol?

Just kidding, joke, I would not unload it on someone 😄.

 

[James]

I got around 7 grand worth of bayvarol sitting in boxes, not sure what to do with it.

Anyone up for some 1/2 price bayvarol?

Just kidding, joke, I would not unload it on someone 😄.

Yep ... i’d be keen to talk on some bayvarol....

 

[Alastair]

My post was a joke, I would not sell it to you James. (or to anyone).

 

[James]

My post was a joke, I would not sell it to you James. (or to anyone).

Hmmm ... just forward thinking for next autumn.

 

[James]

I got around 7 grand worth of bayvarol sitting in boxes, not sure what to do with it.

Anyone up for some 1/2 price bayvarol?

Just kidding, joke, I would not unload it on someone 😄.

Just pondering here Alistair ..... wot U been using to treat varroa with up until now .... if you still have a lot of bayvarol in the shed.... ?

 

[Alastair]

Just pondering here Alistair ..... wot U been using to treat varroa with up until now .... if you still have a lot of bayvarol in the shed.... ?

Bayvarol. This last autumn.

Because it has a 5 year shelf life I bought more than needed right away, partly to get the best price and partly because hordes of smallish beekeepers descend on me wanting to buy at a better price than they can get.

I guess because I inspect hives, I have got to know a lot of beekeepers, and many of them plug me for whatever advantage they can get.

For now though I am doing the right thing and telling anyone who comes my way to use something else.

 

[kaihoka]

My post was a joke, I would not sell it to you James. (or to anyone).

Bayvarol may work fine still in the south island .
Resistance may be mostly in the north of NZ .
Could it be related to temp . Hives that never have a brood brake so have active varroa in them all the time .

 

[Alastair]

That's the thing Kaihoka, the $64 question.

More than $64 actually.

I don't know why it isn't working. Is it a bad batch, is it mite resistance, is it something else?

However the bottom line I'm seeing this in all my sites, and have recieved multiple calls from other local beeks with the same issues and I have also been to look at some of their hives.

It is not a figment of imagination it is real.

 

[Gino de Graaf]

Could you do a resistance test? DIY?

 

[frazzledfozzle]

Bayvarol may work fine still in the south island .
Resistance may be mostly in the north of NZ .
Could it be related to temp . Hives that never have a brood brake so have active varroa in them all the time .

im Hearing of beekeepers seeing high mite numbers while removing Bayvarol now in the South Island

 

[JohnF]

Alistair, I wouldn't be sitting on $7K of product you think is faulty. At the very least, you need to log this with both the company who supplied it and Elanco as well - they will probably take some of the strips to make sure they work. Make sure you keep any varroa from the riddled hives (dead in alcohol is just fine) because if you log in with Elanco then they will want some of the varroa for testing most likely.

We need a more user-friendly version of the Pettis (resistance) test available

 

[kaihoka]

im Hearing of beekeepers seeing high mite numbers while removing Bayvarol now in the South Island

looks like i will have to get my head around making my own OA strips.

 

[Otto]

Disheartening to hear. In saying that we all knew bayvarol/apistan was only ever a medium term solution. It has been used worldwide and resistance has developed everywhere it has been used. I'm very happy to not need it anymore but feel for those with mite issues at the start of winter. Hardest time to have to try and rescue weak, virus-riddled colonies.

 

[JohnF]

We need a more user-friendly version of the Pettis (resistance) test available

Finally got off my chuff @Dave Black and found your post on the old forum.
For those concerned about resistance, please see Dave's excellent piece on performing the resistance test (aka Pettis test) that Dave modified for use with Bayvarol.

Evidence of resistance to synthetics

It seems that people moving away from synthetics will use apivar but not bayvarol. Why is that

www.nzbees.net