Resistant varroa disaster.

[James]

I hear you @Fieldbee (Mary) ..... the year we used O/A as an autumn treatement , we applied staples as we took honey off in January. When we went back at the end of March, we found lotsa duds, whch leads me to believe that if using O/A as the honey comes off, then one needs to get around a lot sooner to re apply ... probably lke mid February.
It all comes down to a time and motion study ..... we 'd end up chasing our tails and have to either contract out the honey extraction, or hire a dedicated on call crew.
In the end we opted to use Apivar with it's thirteen week knock down .... There is no doubt it's more expensive , but it buys us time.
We still plan to use O/A as a spring treatement , and perhaps we should use Bayvarol next autumn so as to very nratly give the synthetics a two year cycle.

 

[southbee]

It all comes down to a time and motion study

You're certainly right there, the treatments need to be doable time wise, otherwise the extra work outweighs the cost of buying the more reliable and easier synthetic treatments. We use oxalic vapour as a back up when needed and in the winter, but treat spring and autumn with synthetics.

 

[yesbut]

Seven months and one winter/spring later, what's the latest with this ?

 

[James]

Whats happening....... we used O/A all spring in the form of the grey carboard strips from Hive world , and then as we supered up we placed a shop cloth under the queen excluder.
It was all quite time consuming and one had to be observant that some hives chewed through the staples quickly, and some seemed to last for ever.
But they had the desired effect.
The bees have made us a crop ..... so the O/A had the desired effect.

We've done a couple of Meth washes over the last few days and have mite counts in the region of 4 - 8 per sample...... and are now putting in four strips of Bayvarol per single brood box.
Last autumn we used Apivar, which I prefer as it is easier to put in and apparantly has a longer knock down period, ..... so we have rotated chemical use quite effectively.

 

[John B]

Seven months and one winter/spring later, what's the latest with this ?

The latest is that despite massive hive losses last autumn there has been no official recognition that there is a problem and the majority of beekeepers are still walking around with their fingers stuck in their ears going Lala Lala.
So no change from seven months ago.
Even a lot of beekeepers who had massive hive losses because of resistant varoa seem to be looking for other excuses as to why their hives died.

 

[James]

Was it resistant varroa….. or under treating?
In tge early days we only used two strips per single brood….. and lost a lot hives one winter.

 

[Breeder of queens Koss]

And what do you say for the VSH direction? I heard that Betta bee was doing this? Who has worked with such bees?

 

[tristan]

The latest is that despite massive hive losses last autumn there has been no official recognition that there is a problem and the majority of beekeepers are still walking around with their fingers stuck in their ears going Lala Lala.
So no change from seven months ago.
Even a lot of beekeepers who had massive hive losses because of resistant varoa seem to be looking for other excuses as to why their hives died.

thats similar to what we had some 10 years ago, people make up excuses and ignore it.
however with beeks going cheap on treatments and some walking away from hives, they will be causing mite reinvasion in areas which compounds the issues.
i doubt there will ever bee official recognition now. i suspect chem companies will squish any ideas of it to stop the anti-chem company sheep from campaigning against them.

Whats happening....... we used O/A all spring in the form of the grey carboard strips from Hive world , and then as we supered up we placed a shop cloth under the queen excluder.
It was all quite time consuming and one had to be observant that some hives chewed through the staples quickly, and some seemed to last for ever.
But they had the desired effect.
The bees have made us a crop ..... so the O/A had the desired effect.

We've done a couple of Meth washes over the last few days and have mite counts in the region of 4 - 8 per sample...... and are now putting in four strips of Bayvarol per single brood box.
Last autumn we used Apivar, which I prefer as it is easier to put in and apparantly has a longer knock down period, ..... so we have rotated chemical use quite effectively.

heard of a few companies killing a lot of hives with O/A treatments. i suggest people do trails first.

10 plus yeas ago bayvarol failed and we could not use it for many years. tho have got it back into rotation these days.