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Apiguard, Varroa treatment

apiguard in hive and hive lacation

Just a short quick update this time.

I’ve just gave the bees their first Apiguard tray, which will start the end of summer Varroa treatment in preparation for winter. I’m a little early this year but as I tend to be late so this year I choose to be early. It is also quit convenient to start the treatment on the first day of the month which coincidentally happens to be a Saturday, perfect. So the tray will need to be replaced on the 14th and the second and last tray will stay with the bees till they are finished with the stuff.

Although I will probably remove the tray beginning of the next month, assess the hive and start feeding soon after, perhaps in the middle of august. That should give me and the bees plenty of time to complete the winter preparations before the weather starts to deteriorate.

I’m borrowing a honey super from a fellow beekeeper (I tend to not paint flowers on my hives…) as my super has vanished from the apiary. It looks like the colony that was in this hyve has either died or the beekeeper found a more suiting hive…

First time going into winter with just one hive….we’ll see.

Andrew

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Battling Varroa

ApiguardI’m using a, for me, new tool in my effort to combat varroa in my colonies, apiguard. You place a “serving” of apiguard on top of the top bars of the frames and leave it there for two weeks and repeat.

From the Apiguard website :

Worker bees climb into the Apiguard tray, remove the gel as a hive-cleaning behaviour and distribute it throughout the colony. The gel sticks to the bees’ body hairs and, as the bees move through the hive, particles are left throughout the hive. The worker eventually throws out the gel it is carrying, but the traces remain until they too are removed later.

The gel acts like a slow thymol release agent. Thymol is a naturally occurring substance that has proven to work as an anti varroa agent as well as being an antimicrobial and fungicidal substance.  Seeing my earlier experience with formic acid, this perhaps is a good alternative. Although I forgot to place a bottom board in the hives to see the varroa drop, thus making it hard to compare it to the formic acid treatment. But perhaps I’ll see less varroa in December when I treat with oxalic acid because of this treatment.

You do need to be done with your honey harvest because the thymol will also dissolve into the honey giving it a distinctly unpleasant taste. You should also not feed the bees while giving this treatment because the bees will be to busy with storing the feed syrup to disperse the thymol gel.

Otherwise Sif and Artemis are looking good. Next on the todo list is judging the fitness of the colonies in the light of winter survival. Will need to asses their size and food supply to estimate how much feeding they will need.

Andrew