Tag Archives: treatments

20/20

I’m sure my bee left their hive in the fall because of the Varroa mite, I will be treating this year, I had two hive that made it through winter but died off when we went through three weeks of rain. I should have feed them more. I already had one of my hive come back and I plan that more will follow.

RESPONSE: High varroa mite populations are apparently one of the reasons bees abscond (leave) their hive late in the fall. I say apparent because there is no experimentation to “prove” that assumption. Colonies do have a tough time in the spring and can perish when the weather takes a turn for the worst. Sorry you both of them. Better spring weather helps them recover.

2015 Survey Q & A – Apiary Practices & Deadouts

Q-I cycled out drone comb through August. Screen bottom board colonies got 4 or 5 powdered sugar treatments. Solid bottom boards got ApiGuard. I gave 3 Apiguard treatments in a row. Some of each died and some of each survived. All dead-outs happened Oct, Nov, and Dec of 2014. One looked like it would make the grade for almonds 10/19 but on 11/25 it was a dead out?!

A- Thank you for sending a survey. The details on use of different control materials depending upon configuration of the hive (sold or screen bottom boards) is useful and we will seek to capture it in our data analysis.

2015 Survey Q & A – Question for Treatment Results

Q- You may want to design a question that addresses treatments that worked, but worked too late. I treated with OA, after I was down to 1 hive, having watched 4 others die out even before winter. I didn’t recognize how bad the mite problem was until too late, and then finally got a vaporizer to treat, but only had one hive remaining. That one became very strong going into the winter, even though it was late fall.

A-Thank you for completing a survey. You had a comment on our adding a question on treatments that worked but were used too late.  That is a good idea. Unfortunately we have a constraint on the number of questions we feel we can cover and yet get data. We do have the question on what was used and when it was used –that question will get to your comment – partially at least. As we look at our full data base we will certainly take your comment under consideration – for another year. Appreciate your interest and comment.