temperature for sugar rolls

[yolanda huang]

So, is it warm enough now in the daytime to do a sugar roll?  

Should we do a sugar roll for every hive?

How often?

[Gerald Przybylski]

How often you do sugar rolls depends on how well you know the stock in
your hives,
and other clues you see in the yard and in the hives.
As you gain experience you get a feel for which hives to pay attention
to and how often.

Do you see only a few, or a LOT of crawler bees around the yard?
Do you see any, a few, or a LOT of deformed-wing bees?
Do you see "spotty" brood patterns on all the brood frames?  (if at
least some brood frames look "perfect,"** Varroa probably isn't a problem)
Do you see "bald brood" i.e. pupa cells that have been uncapped so you
can see the face of the pupa?  indicating a mite resistant trait.
Do you see open pupa cells with pupa partially removed? The expression
of the VHS trait.
If you have a screen bottom board,  in 24 hours do you find a couple, or
a couple dozen, or hundreds of mites on the slider?
(fewer than two mature per hour doesn't bother me much.)

In our yard we keep swarm colonies or their daughters. We find that
mostly they deal with Varroa on their own.
So when I do Assays a couple of weeks apart, the Percentage of Varroa is
about the same. (usually lower than 3%, with zero not so uncommon)
That tells me the bees have the Varroa problem in hand.
Complementary evidence is that DWV bees are rare, and there are few
crawlers (virus infected).
The bees are  telling me they don't need to be treated. Yea.
If the Varroa population grows each assay over three or four successive
assays, then the bees (may) have low Varroa resistance.
Treat 'em or requeen them with a queen from Varroa resistant stock.
(force an emergency queen with a frame of brood
from one of your Varroa resistant hives)
We don't have to worry about our treatment products finding their way
into the honey or the wax. (yes, I know with organic acids the problem
is small or doesn't exist)  We still have a good feeling about it.

For the past few years I haven't had a dead-out I could positively pin
on Varroa.
Our dead-outs are queen failures (no queen found, or non-laying queen,
or drone laying queen)
or they're nutrition related (brood area loaded up with crystallized ivy
honey).

Our goal is healthy happy colonies. It's not maximizing honey production
- our hives produce enough surplus.
We tolerate colonies that plug along on their own.  They don't require
as much intervention.
How you manage your hives depends on your goals, your pocketbook, and
your belief system.

ps.  Randy Oliver made measurements with thermistor thermometers that
show that while the sugar-roll jar is resting for the two minutes before
the shake-out. The temperature of the powder-sugar coated bees doesn't
change. The published "wisdon," that says the bees drive the mites out
by heating up is wrong.

that's my 2¢
** perfect brood frames to me are patterns of pupa that have only a
couple of empty cells.
Pretty much wall-to-wall beautifully capped pupa out to the edge of
where the queen laid eggs.

[Catherine Edwards]

Now would be a good time to do a sugar roll for each hive, if only to get a baseline idea of how they are going into the spring buildup. Dealing with varroa levels early makes a difference in terms of ultimate mite numbers later in the season. Randy Oliver explains this on his website. Waiting to see virus symptoms means the hive is already compromised even if it survives. A sugar roll will give you data for decision making and it's an easy thing to do, so why not.

Catherine Edwards

(510)421-7206

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[Mimi]

Since I only have 4 hives - I treat them all at the time I put on second box.  Treating varying ways and on a schedule works well for my backyard hives.   Sometimes in summer when I doubt whether or not to treat I’d test with alcohol wash.  I find using sugar sake there’s still a large number of bees that die so to spare them the agony and me the constant turning of jar - I stick with alcohol wash.  Mimi 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 19, 2026, at 3:17 PM, Catherine Edwards <catherine...@gmail.com> wrote:



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