Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: What do I treet For?  (Read 3298 times)

Offline beecowboy

  • New Bee
  • *
  • Posts: 16
What do I treet For?
« on: June 10, 2005, 01:34:20 am »
Hello I am new to Bee keeping I have 4 hives and I see alot about mites and treetment I was wondering what all we have here in South Alabama and what I need to use to treet with?      Thanks for all the help :oops:

Offline JP

  • The Swarm King
  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 11709
  • Gender: Male
  • I like doing cut-outs, but I love catching swarms!
    • JPthebeeman.com
What do I treet For?
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2005, 09:28:03 am »
beecowboy, I think you'll get different advice on this subject, but here's my two cents. What do you intend to do with your honey? keep for self & friends & family or get big & sell large scale? How pure do you want your honey to be, pesticide free? Seems that mites are biggest pest, you also will have to be aware of certain conditions that will attract waxmoth, I'm told with the moths you have to be concerned mostly when you harvest honey & have empty frames lying around. I was told to put supers back on after harvest & bees will pick foundations clean reducing feed for waxmoth. I have heard from some very experienced beekeepers to keep your hives strong & they will take care of themselves. Screen bottom boards also help with mites. Remember, wax absorbs many things including pesticides.
My Youtube page is titled JPthebeeman with hundreds of educational & entertaining videos.

My website JPthebeeman.com http://jpthebeeman.com

Offline leominsterbeeman

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 461
  • Gender: Male
    • http://www.leominsterbeeman.com
What do I treet For?
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2005, 11:05:07 am »
I assume you mean Varroa Mites if that is what you are seeing....

If you use any pesticides (Apistan Strips) you must remove the honey supers.  Treat with Apistan for 42 days.    place two strips between the frames #3-4 and 7-8 in each brood box.   Two deep brood boxes you need 4 strips.

A screened bottom board is a good method too.    The mites fall through the screen and can't get back up.  There is usually a debris tray  with a screen bottom board and you can coat the tray with a this film of crisco  and that will have the mites stick to it.

There are other non-evasive ways that others with more experience will need to comment on.  Robo?  Lesli?
Michael Keane
leominsterbeeman@comcast.net
http://www.leominsterbeeman.com

Offline Finsky

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2791
  • Gender: Male
What do I treet For?
« Reply #3 on: June 10, 2005, 12:26:15 pm »
Here seems to be logical system to catch mites from hives in 3 weeks. Read better here.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jtemp/dronemethod.html

You take your hive  4 feets apart and you put  new hive to old place.
Take queen and a frame of young larvas to new hive.

After a week larvas are capped and mites are inside brood. Then you take the brood frame and wash cells clean and dry in the air.

In old hive there is no more open brood. Mites are free. Then you give frame with eggs and young larvas to hive, and free mites enter to larvas beforen capping. when brood are capped, mites are inside brood. You kill those brood and wash cells with garden hose .

You devide again old hive and catch free mites from bees. After that you put cleaned hive parts together.

After 3 weeks all brood are emerged and mites are free in old hive, but you must destroy all dronecells. Then you make final catching with larvas.

After 3 weeks your hive is very clean and queen is able to continue all the time new brood.  I have hera that men have handled with chemicals brood hive an it has violated badly larvas.  Also I have found that apistan strip may make queen sterile.  It has happened to many times.

Offline Michael Bush

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 19835
  • Gender: Male
    • bushfarms.com
What do I treet For?
« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2005, 01:32:04 pm »
The most important thing to learn is how to monitor the Varroa mite population.  Once you've learned to do that you can decide IF you need to treat and now would be a good time to come up with a plan of what you want to do.

What I do is put them on natural sized or small sized cell (4.9mm foundation or foundationless frames) and the Varroa have stayed under control without treating.

If they don't and you want to treat there are many alternatives, all of which fail under the right conditions.  You need to decide what is consistent with your values, budget, time constraints etc.

Powederd sugar, FGMO (food grade mineral oil),  sucrocide, oxalic acid, drone trapping, thymol and many other things are viable options.  Read up on them and see what you think.

It's a good idea to read up on things like EFB, AFB, caulkbrood, etc. so you have an idea of things that can happen and will recognize them when you see them.

http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/pest&disease/pppdIndex.html
http://www.kohala.net/bees/#anchor400987
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
-------------------
"Everything works if you let it."--James "Big Boy" Medlin

 

anything