Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[.Mêl]

Sorry to pester, but I've received no replies to my previous post, and I am getting a bit stressed.

Six weeks ago, I dusted the brood chamber with icing sugar. Two weeks later, I noticed a lot of Varroa carcasses on the hive floor. My mentor speculated that the sugar had caused the bees to groom each other, knocking off dead mites. However, I examined the hive floor again last week, and though I hadn't dusted with icing sugar during the previous inspection, I saw a lot of dead Varroa again. No live ones that I could see.

Researching, I have come across something that is making me very worried. The carcasses are the result of house bees killing, then discarding the bodies of male mites that are left in vacated cells. Correct?

My mentor has given me some Thymol to mix with a sugar syrup feed. But, I have a super on the hive that has at least 8 frames of honey-filled comb. There is additional honey stored in the brood chamber. So, the bees might not get to the Thymol-treated syrup until it's too late.

Another enquirer has just been advised to use an oxalic acid treatment, I think. Is that my (possible) solution as well? If so, I am clueless how to go about it.

M

[AndyC]

You clearly have an infestation as the sugar treatment has shown but if the bees are killing them what's the hurry?

Is there any DWV?

Speculation about who is doing what to whom and where is not going to cure the issue in the hive.

Oxalic acid vaporisation is the most effective method of mite control at the moment especially if done when there is no or little brood.

That means mid December to mid January in most parts of the southern U.K.

If I were you I would read up on oxalic vaporisation and buy myself a GOOD vapouriser and get set up for this winters best treatment period.

[.Mêl]

Thanks, Andy. I will check for DMV and read up in vaporisation.