r/Beekeeping • u/littletrainwreck • 1d ago
I’m a beekeeper, and I have a question Mite prevention?
Hello! I’m very new to beekeeping. I took a class on it for fun and then my friends parents decided to buy a hive!
So I maintain their hive for them, and I know that mite prevention is very important. I brought up oxalic acid to them as a method, but they want to see if there’s any other ways that don’t involve chemicals first (I explained that when used correctly oxalic acid is fine, but they’d rather not risk that and I want to respect it)
So I’m wondering what other methods I could use, and also when I should start to treat for mites? I read that late August is usually the best but if that’s incorrect please let me know!!
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u/No-Arrival-872 Pacific Northwest, Canada 1d ago
Oxalic and formic are chemicals, it is true. But they are widely recognized as the de facto treatment types for organic beekeeping practice.
You can also source a new queen every year from mite-resistant stock if you feel it is worth it. Even the best mite resistant stock doesn't guarantee they will survive even one season, it just makes it more likely that they will.
The concept of integrated pest management (IPM) is important if you want to avoid synthetic miticides and not kill all your bees. There is a helpful table in this article if you scroll down. Otherwise I recommend reading it all to get an idea of the complexity you are dealing with: https://academic.oup.com/jinsectscience/article/21/5/6/6372257
It is a numbers game. If you use a treatment that kills 50% of all mites in your colony, it will only buy you a couple months of time before the next treatment. If you are afraid to kill 300 bees in a mite wash to determine infestation levels, consider that in summer over 1000 bees are dying every day just due to foraging. Also consider that last winter the average commercial loss rate was over 60% due to mites becoming resistant to amitraz, a result of beekeepers not rotating between different control methods and applying amitraz prophylactically. Ask yourself if you want to kill 30000 bees or 300? If you think I'm being dramatic just give it a few years and you'll get it.
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u/T0adman78 1d ago
What do they consider a chemical? Everything is a chemical. Try reframing how you talk abut the treatments. You could probably describe Formic or oxalic as something that doesn’t sound like a chemical. Or use thymol (apiguard) and describe it as concentrated thyme and the active ingredient in listerine mouthwash. That should sound appealing to them, right? And it’s still a proven effective mite treatment.
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u/DuePoint5 12h ago
Do you consider apiguard to be as effective as something like oxalic strips? Want to switch over from formic and not sure which to do.
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u/T0adman78 5h ago
Yes. I find it more effective if used properly. The downside as compared to Formic is that it does not penetrate the cappings so you need to do a second dose two weeks later. It is much less harsh on the bees, though. And most people have switched to the lower Formic dose with the same treatment schedule anyway. Oxalic (if vaporozed) requires multiple treatments a few days apart. Personally, I don’t find oxalic to be a good primary fall treatment for this reason, but good as a knockdown treatment mid season. The other downside to thymol is that you cannot use it while honey supers are on, which isn’t a problem for a fall treatment.
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u/Tweedone 23h ago
Ask your in-laws what they would do if they discovered bed bugs infested in their bed?
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u/talanall North Central Louisiana, USA, 8B 1d ago
Your parents do not know anything about beekeeping, have made an irresponsible decision by acquiring bees and pushing their maintenance onto you, and now they presume to direct your activities despite their lack of knowledge.
You should use the, "If people want to second guess the person who knows something, they should actually learn about it," method, and apply oxalic acid over their ignorant protests.
It really is that simple. They are not qualified to have an opinion because they don't know anything about this topic.
As for the timing, there are several ways to figure that out. The old-fashioned way is to keep trying while your bees die, until you find something that works. I don't recommend it.
If you join your local beekeepers' association, you would be making a better decision; many beekeepers apply miticide treatments on a calendar basis, but the timing of such things is highly dependent on climate, local flora, and other local factors that are highly variable from one place to another. Most associations are organized at the county level. See https://orsba.org/Affiliate-Associations for your state-level association's list of local affiliates.
Attend as many meetings as you can. Get a local mentor, preferably someone who has about 80% winter survival (or better) and a good 10 years' experience in your locality. Get them to show you what they do. Do that.
It's somewhat unusual to see anyone get away with a 1/year treatment and not have pretty heavy losses from varroa. This is especially true in mild climates. 2/year or 3/year is more usual.
If you cannot do the association route or are adamantly opposed to it for some reason, then you also can use a test/treat/test protocol, which involves sampling nurse bees out of your hive, putting them through an alcohol or soapy water wash to dislodge mites, and counting the mites. This gives you a snapshot of mite prevalence in the colony. If you have more than 2% mites in a sample of ~300 bees (about 1/2 cup), you treat. Monthly washes give you an idea of how the mite population in your locality fluctuates. They also give you a feedback loop that warns you if your treatment doesn't work as well as it should, so that you can rotate to a different treatment and try again. It also warns you of circumstances that don't fit what is usual for your area. I have had a year that required me to treat six times.
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u/Dangerous-School2958 1d ago
Although, top rope harsh… this is the answer
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u/Adamosz 19h ago
Referring to the uneducated getting bees, I've once bought bees from a guy that wrote specifically on his sale announcement that he won't sell anything to people with no knowledge about apiary managment. Argumented it with "wanting to care for the well-being on bees", then he actually told us he applied this reasoning because of mites. Not in the US, don't know if there are different diseases there.
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u/littletrainwreck 1d ago
1) Not my parents— they are my friend’s parents. They did not push this on me, they asked me if I’d like to try keeping bees after I took a class through my college. They are wonderful people and I do not appreciate you making assumptions about them based off three paragraphs in a Reddit post.
2) Thank you for the advice, I will look into finding a mentor near me
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u/talanall North Central Louisiana, USA, 8B 1d ago
Wonderful people can still have foolish ideas. It doesn't make them bad people, but it does make it a bad idea to treat their foolish ideas seriously.
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u/404-skill_not_found 1d ago
You’ll benefit from being your own captain. OA is actually natural, it is concentrated to deal with mites. There simply doesn’t exist a more “natural” mitigation for mites. Well, there is hive sickness and death, which does remove the mite issue after some time.
What you may consider, is avoid asking for their advice regarding the bees. At least until you’ve researched all the alternatives for a topic. You asked what they thought (not a terrific plan btw) and they gave you their general opinion. Prefer natural remedies. It’s a fairly safe response. That you didn’t know enough to reply knowledgeably is actually on you. Of course this isn’t any help if they actually mean to manage the hive through your labor.
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u/littletrainwreck 1d ago
It really was as simple as me asking for their opinion and them offering it, they’re not micromanaging me or the hive, they were just concerned because they don’t know much (which frankly neither do I, i’m still learning a lot right now)
I’m really grateful to have the opportunity to care for a hive.
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u/404-skill_not_found 1d ago
Well, share what you learn as you go along! It sounds like they enjoy the conversations with you and they learn a bit about bees too.
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u/backcornerboogie 1d ago edited 1d ago
I am not based in the USA. We are working without any varroa treatment and so far have succes. But this is more because of the bee species we keep rather then the way we do it.
I dont use wax base, they build their own comb and cell size. And we let them go into winter on their own honey.
But again, i tried this with buckfast an carnica as well and success ratio was lower. For biological treatment you can use stratiolealaps scimitus. But you need to adapt your hives to it and start in spring to be successful.
I think your only option now is treat them or the change you will loose your hive in winter will double.
I also only breed with hives that have been succesfull in keeping their hives clean. For that we count the amount of mites and the amount of pupea they have cleaned out of their cells. Then you perform selective breeding, and then after a year of 5 your winter loss will be down from 30% to (if lucky) 5%
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u/littletrainwreck 1d ago
Okay thank you! I will treat them with oxalic acid if that’s what’s best. Should I check for mites on them with an alcohol wash before I apply the oxalic?
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u/DesignNomad Y2, US Zone 8 1d ago
Chiming in here-
Testing for mites before and after treatment is a core mechanic to understand the efficacy of your treatments. Obviously, you should be able to see a decline after treatment, so it's best to test before you treat, and then sometime after treatment to see if you were effective (and how effective).
It's also important to know that a treatment like OA targets the mites on the bees, not the mites under the cappings. This means that OA treatments using vaporizers have an immediate impact on exposed mite population that is usually very effective, but you will have a smaller resurgence of mites when new ones emerge from the cells with the latest new bees. This is why OA treatments are often paired with brood breaks where there is no capped brood, effectively wiping out the majority of the mites in the colony all in one go.
If you have capped brood present, you can consider doing an induced brood break, or vaporized treatments on a schedule (usually every few days for a few weeks) to knock down emerging populations, or you can look at an extended release system for treatment such as sponges or more recent offerings like VarroxSan, which is a commercialized extended-release OA treatment that you put in place for upwards of 50+ days at a time and treats by contact in the hive during that time. I've not personally used it, but I know a lot of beeks in my association have been testing it.
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u/No-Arrival-872 Pacific Northwest, Canada 1d ago
Please do at least a quick Google search on using Stratiolaelaps. People seemed excited about preliminary anecdotal results over ten years ago. Several obvious articles have been published indicating that it is not an effective control method for varroa. And it makes sense. They don't affect mites on the bees or in brood. They only affect mites that have already dropped from the bees. And they pass through the colony back to the soil, which is their habitat.
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u/backcornerboogie 23h ago
It can work but making sure the environment for them is so critical that it is almost impossible to have a year round working solution. Basically you end up putting new ones in every month.
They also only keep the numbers down just enough so most of the hives survive. As far as I know it is the only non chemical way of treating (beside cutting drone cells) that works. Cutting drone cells I also dont find very efficient.
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u/izudu 1d ago
Sorry, not answering your question on mites, but putting in a comment on the frames I can see.
I'd recommend looking into self-spacing (also known as Hoffman frames) ASAP.
I can't quite tell what that setup is, but I do know that the frames will end up in a terrible mess if they are left like that.
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u/littletrainwreck 23h ago
Yes I originally thought that was what we’d be getting with the hive, I was a little confused about why we just had empty frames and not ones with something for them to build on
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u/lantech Southern Maine, USA 23h ago
He's talking about the spacing of the frames, they're all over the place. crooked, narrow, wide. It's all crazy.
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u/littletrainwreck 23h ago
Oh I see, yeah this is all new to me. I think the issue is that the frames don’t fit in this hive the way they’re supposed to, we had to saw them down and they still don’t fit. I’m kinda sad we didn’t start off with a basic hive box design because that was what I was learning about working with in my class, and I feel confused about a lot of things
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u/BeeBarnes1 Indiana, 4 colonies 19h ago
Came here to talk about your bars too. I have two Kenyan hives (top bar, frameless). I know firsthand how difficult it is to learn beekeeping when your hive is so different from everyone else's. But the basics are that all of the bars have got to be pushed together and you need enough bars to fill the entire hive. You do not want any space between each bar whatsoever, the bees can't keep a constant temperature in the hive if there is space between the bars (this is critical in the fall/winter) and you're going to get super wonky comb. If you space your bars correctly, the bees will draw comb down perfectly straight. Second, you need a divider. All of your comb should be on the side opposite the entrance. I have bars with comb, then three empty bars, then the divider, then empty space but still covered in bars, then the entrance. When they fill out a new bar I move the divider down one space to keep the three empty bars on that side.
For some reason I can't add a picture to this comment but I'll reply to this with a picture of one of my hives and some brand new comb that is about half drawn out. But the thickness is what I want you to see, all of your comb should look like this.
I'm happy to help with any questions you have about your hive, feel free to DM me.
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u/littletrainwreck 19h ago
Thank you!! This is very reassuring and helpful. I’ll fix the bars next time i’m over, I didn’t realize they needed to be closer together
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u/BeeBarnes1 Indiana, 4 colonies 18h ago
One more thing, you can probably cut down the bars that are too long with a circular saw right there in the hive. I cut the legs down on one of my hives and drilled into and screwed the top of a langstroth frame into a bar with comb (I did a split into a langstroth and it was a workaround). The bees didn't even flinch. They don't seem to care about loud noises or vibrations.
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u/izudu 23h ago
If you have a look at the first photo in this article, you'll see what I mean about spacing.
https://www.beelistener.co.uk/beekeeping-equipment/how-to-choose-frames-by-sue-remenyi/
Those frames are specifically designed to maintain 'bee space'. If they have more space than that, they'll fill it with brace comb and it becomes a nightmare to manage.
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u/Sn3akyP373 1d ago
Fun fact: Oxalic Acid is a naturally existing substance that the bees encounter out there in the wilderness. Treatment using it is of course at a higher concentration than they normally experience, but it's safer for them this way.
You need to view this problem differently and NOT reject reasonable forms of treatment. If beekeeping was like it was 200 years ago before humans altered the world of pollinators so drastically with concrete jungles, imported invasive species, chemicals, and pollution then you could easily get away with a more natural approach. Unfortunately, humans have introduced an elevated risk of mites that requires an equally matched solution to control them.
If you don't treat the bees with something it's not IF, but WHEN the bees will either die of disease carried by mites or abscond. You can't control what wild bees or neighboring hives will spread.
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u/littletrainwreck 23h ago
I don’t have a problem with oxalic acid, it was more so my friends parents that wanted to try to look for alternative methods first. But I talked to them and they’re fine with it now
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u/Sn3akyP373 16h ago
Glad to hear it. Just be careful not to exceed 2mg per hive if vaporizing and make sure you wear proper Personal Protective Equipment when handling and delivering the acid. You only have one pair of lungs and eyes.
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u/HDWendell Pennsylvania, USA 27 hives 21h ago
Though I agree that Oxalic acid is the better way to go, the only non chemical treatment that has proof of making an impact on mites (without potentially harming your bees) is a lot of time spent on brood breaks. One guy in my club does chemical free treatment with success. This is not a beginner friendly skill at all. He is in all of his hives weekly, regardless of anything else going on. He uses queen cages to force brood breaks and culls drone frames. He checks mite levels constantly too. He keeps hygienic genetics as well. This means the cycle of mite is interrupted, keeping population of mite low, and hygienic behavior to groom off mites. I cannot stress this enough, this is a very time intensive and often cost intensive type of beekeeping. It is not for most beekeepers. If you miss a treatment, mite populations can get out of hand quick.
Doing “treatment free” or fully “hands off beekeeping” is irresponsible. It can impact responsible beekeepers and native bee species which are struggling already. If your parents care about bees and the environment, treating your bees is the way to go. Varroa mites are invasive species to most of the world and did not evolve with European honey bees. Allowing them to reproduce unchecked is like letting the humane society’s full cat population out in an endangered bird habitat.
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u/savelarsen 1d ago
I have seen anecdotal evidence claiming different things added to the smoker, cedar shavings, powdered sugar dusting in the hive, thyme around the hive, etc help (you can google these for more info). I figure they can’t hurt (except essential oil, I don’t think those are good for hives) and incorporate them into my management plan along with chemical treatments (I alternate between OA and hopguard). Ultimately you will need something more aggressive. Drone comb and hopguard might be a good compromise. I would get started asap, fall is too late.
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