Treating for Mites
What are mites?
The most common destructor of the honey bee hive is a Varroa Mite. The Varroa mite can only reproduce in a honey bee colony. It attaches to the body of the bee and weakens the bee by feeding on its blood.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Varroa_destructor_on_drone_66a.jpg
To better understand the life cycle of mites, take a look at this video:
Video On The Life Cycle of Varroa Mites and Their Effect On Honey Bee Colonies
How to test for mites:
There are two common ways you can test for mites.
The Alcohol Wash (The same steps as the Powdered Sugar Roll Test, but instead of a Mason Jar with Powder, you use Alcohol in the Varroa Easy Check)
Results of mite test:
The sample that you have taken should be around 300 bees (1/2 cup of bees). The number of mites that are in the tub or jar, you have to divide the number of mites by 3 to get the percent of infestation of the whole hive. For example, if the colony only have two mites come out, (2)/100 bees=2/3
Another example: If there are 16 in this sample of 300 bees, which you divide by 3 to get percent infestation (mites per 100 bees)—in this case, slightly over 5%.
Any bee hive with a mite infestation of 5% or more should be treated immediately.
Options for treatment:
There are many different ways to go about preventing mites, almost too many to count. Before picking a treatment, be sure to do your research in the different ways you can protect your colonies from the Varroa Mite and there success rates. Also ask your local beekeeping group or mentor for advise if this is your first year.
Treatments include:
Screened Bottom Board
Apilife VAR®
Mite-Away II®
Apistan®
CheckMite+®
Two Other Treatments that I have used this year:
Drone Brood Trapping
One popular way is to introduce a drone frame into the brood box. This is a plastic frame (sometime green), made of plastic that has larger combs started for the bees to build off of. Since these combs will be larger, the queen will know to place drone eggs (males) into these cells.
Why drone cells? Because mites actually prefer drone brood over worker brood.
Once the drone cells are capped, remove the frame and place in the freezer overnight. this will kill the drone brood as well as the mites who are in those cells. Place the frame back into the hive, the worker bees will then clean out the cells and discard of the brood and mites. The queen will then lay again and the process is repeated.
Apiguard
This year I decided to try Apiguard. It comes in a small blue box with 10 trays that slowly release gel that ensures correct dosage of its active ingredient, thymol. Thymol is a naturally occurring substance derived from the plant thyme. It is very important that you wear gloves when doing this treatment and not have any contact with your skin.
Last year I made the mistake of not treating and lost a hive. This year I made sure I did research and asked my mentor for advice on what treatment to try. I decided to go with Apiguard as it seemed the easiest to apply to the colony. Take a look below at the board I pulled out of one of my colonies! C-O-V-E-R-E-D in Mites! I couldn’t believe my eyes! The other hive boards looked exactly the same, filled with mites. Hopefully this helped the colony as we get ready for the Winter Season!
Precautions!
Never treat your bees with any kind of medication when you have honey supers on the hive. If you do, your honey becomes contaminated and cannot be used for human consumption. Make sure to complete your honey harvest for the season before starting to treat for mites!