Lost hives

[beehappy1950]

Lost half of my hives this fall. Varroa got em. Whats everybody recommend. Can I just put a flea and tick collar on them? Help. This is costly.

[rookie2531]

OAV seems cheap to me.

[troyin17331]

Stratiolaelaps scimitus

[rwlaw]

Depends which direction you want to go. I use brood breaks for mite control.
 If I were to treat, I think I would use the OAV with vaporizer tray method, seems simple and so far it looks like the mites don't develop resistance to it.

[troyin17331]

varroa mites don't develop a resistance to Stratiolaelaps scimitus either

[beehappy1950]

Ok 17331. How are you supposed to administer these things. They say they eat larva and eggs. Must be something I am missing here. Harold

[troyin17331]

easy you put a half sheet of paper in the top box of frames measure out a good 1/3 cup spread it out on the paper and close up the hives the bees and stratios do the rest.

[GSF]

I'm a big fan of the oxalic acid vaporizing. I'm going into my second winter. The first fall I did the OAV. Next spring I couldn't' hardly see the frames for the bees. 2 8f deeps. In this case correlation may not mean causation but I'm sticking with it until I learn otherwise.

[beehappy1950]

GSF. do you put that on like they do on youtube?

[Dallasbeek]

Where do you buy stratiolaelaps scimitus, anyway?  That's new to me and here's one view I've found, but that's still open (see if I can make a link on an iPad): 

http://www.honeybeesuite.com/stratiolaelaps-scimitus-for-varroa-control

How bout that?  I did it (i think).  I'm still waiting for GSF to answer beehappy1950.  I like the idea of OAV, but how does it compare to drizzle application?

[troyin17331]

here is the list of distributors for the company that raises them they are listed in 3 geographic lists Canada, USA, Europe  so make sure you are on the right list and find one that is close to you since i live in pa i got mine from IPM labs as they are in NY

http://www.appliedbio-nomics.com/distributors/

the honeybeesuite page is the one that got me started in this direction but i talked to the guy at applied bio and he says that they will stick around in the hive and that they will even go back to it.

[rober]

troy-
how many are you using per hive?

[GSF]

beehappy, when you say "put that on" it makes me think you're referring to pouring it on. I've never used the pour on. This is a crystal form
of OA. I got the vaporizer from  http://www.members.shaw.ca/orioleln/orderform.html   also http://www.members.shaw.ca/orioleln/orderform.html   will give you the picture of it. If you search this site or google you can find a homemade version of it. I recommend getting a 1 gram scoop so you don't over do it and kill them off.

I got my OA from this vendor off of ebay            http://www.ebay.com/usr/loudwolf1?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2754

Some folks say it's got to be pretty pure other say it don't matter. I am currently in my second year. I've read where others who have tried different methods then tried this, say it's much better. My one and only rodeo went pretty good. The next spring (last) I did a two splits on March the second. My 2 8f deeps were wall to wall and boiling over with bees, and had 6 or 8 swarm cells with the queen AWOL.

I don't know about the dribble but from what I understand the strips and other stuff leaves you with a high bee mortality rate. If you decide to go this route give me a holler and I'll get a little deeper into it. I am fixing to do the 3rd weekly application in a few minutes. Good luck.

[troyin17331]

a good 1/3 c measure i got threw 13 hives with one bottle. i also used a bit out of both bottles in the house for fleas

[buzzbee]

It would have been better to knock down the mite population in August. This is when bee population starts to decline and mite populations are peaking.That way healthier bees would have been raising the brood that would become bees that would overwinter.Miteaway quick strips are a easy method for knockdown of mite populations.
 Often it takes a hive started from packages until year three to be overloaded with mites.

[troyin17331]

yea if you are raising chemical dependent bees instead of creating naturally hygienic bee ecosystems/strains

[Dallasbeek]

yea if you are raising chemical dependent bees instead of creating naturally hygienic bee ecosystems/strains

To whom was that directed?  And can you give some idea where you're located (just state, maybe)?  It helps everybody to know what area you're in.

[troyin17331]

the comment above that

[Dallasbeek]

Troy,

Good on you for putting the location and thanks for the info on where to get those critters.  Sounds good.  Keep us posted on continuing results, okay?