Hello All,
I normally try and stay out of these discussions. Mainly because after years
of trying most I came to the conclusion I needed stronger varroa controls in
my operation.

The bottom line is once you get varroa in your hives its forever and all you
do is knock back the varroa. *If* you are using controls like apiguard &
miteaway 2 and you do not get a good control in fall then you will have a
harder time with control in spring and so on and so forth.

I get calls all the time from beeks which followed the directions and had
hives full of varroa at the next treatment time. My answer is quick. Your
last treatment did not get good efficacy.

I remember the days when an apistan strip would drop more varroa than you
could count in 24 hours.( 3000?) but know you use an apistan in my area and
you get around a 150 and half are alive and crawling.

As a beekeeper which is constantly checking varroa load, tracheal mite load
and nosema load I wonder why beeks which do not treat are not having more
problems than they are.

I think the reason goes back to my testing survivor days. I found that the
key factor in surviving varroa was shutting down brood laying many times a
year ( weather or available forage) and a hive which is not being forced to
raise brood. I have a survivor hive outside which is on 3 frames of brood.
Not a big varroa load. I don;t really care but glad all my production hives 
do not look like the survivor hive!
My production hives have been fed three gallons of
feed and are ready for their second patty.  I will be splitting about the
time most beeks in our area are making their first yard checks!
When those beeks are doing their splits first of May I will be adding more
supers to mine.

When you are raising brood you are raising varroa mites.

I followed a two year study by a member of our club using only powdered
sugar . He swore by the method at meetings and then I got a call his bees
were crashing. When checked varroa load was way over threshold and even
checkmite strips would not turn the hives around.

Another started using food grade mineral oil. He sang the praises for almost
two seasons and then the crash came.

* if* you decide to use these types of IPM one needs to constantly monitor
varroa loads. Just marking off on the calendar that you went out and dosed
with sugar dusting or fogging will not work. You need to test test test.

Both of the above beeks could have saved their hives if they had called for
advice when they saw that the sugar dusting or fogging was not keeping the
varroa load at reasonable levels.

IPM does not mean you only pull drone brood for example but it means that
through testing when you see pulling drone brood is not providing the
control you need you switch to another method (possibly stronger) to regain
control. Without testing you have no clue of varroa load.

tip.
I use mite rolls and pull drone brood later in the season. Sticky boards 
take two trips to the yard.

bob

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned 
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html