Treating Varroa

[Mike]

I have been (as I said) working on ideas to treat varroa.
I know what I am posting is not ground breaking ideas but wanted
feedback on what the draw backs would be.

Bee lifespan:
Queen = 16 days to emerging.
Worker = 21 days to emerging.
Drone = 24 days to emerging.

So as is known 24 days is the longest to expect between emergences.

1) Creating a broodless (or near broodless) hive for treatment. This
brings all or almost all mites out of the cells (except those caged
with the queen).
A) Cage queen on a drone frame. Possible cage two drone frames
together to keep queen more active.
B) Begin giving powder sugar dustings.
C) Dusting hive 2 times a week (once a week probably would work).
D) On 23rd day after caging queen give final dusting.
E) Release queen
F) Remove drone frames and freeze.

This drops one complete brood cycle.

Mike

[danfan46]

Hi Mike.

I read an article in the Swedish Beekeepers Journal about the following procedure:

When the hive is good and strong in the beginning of the summer you take all
the brood combs out of the hive and create a starter hive. The queen must remain in the old hive.

The original hive is treated with milk acid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactic_acid)
and since there are no larvae it is very effective.

In the new hive you crunch the queen cells every ten days. After 24 days all broods are free from larvae and
you can treat this hive with milk acid.

After a day or two you can easily re-combine the hives with the "newspaper method".

This way the queen can be productive all the time and you don't loose productivity.

This method is work consuming and fit for beekeepers with a small amount of hives.

/dg