NEW DATA FROM THE USA, CONFIRMING OUR OPINION ON THE NECESSITY TO CONTINUE THE PROJECT "APIVOX VARROA ELIMINATOR".

Studying the materials published in the American Bee Journal # 4 2020, we came across statistics, which fully correspond to our own results obtained during the work on the Apivox Varroa Eliminator project. This both pleased and upset us, since the loss of bees wherever they occur, worsens the situation with the bees on the entire Earth. 

In addition, the statistics again confirmed, that none of the drugs currently used in beekeeping, no matter how loudly they are advertised, do not radically solve the problem of combating varroatosis in our apiaries, but only put us "on the needle" of companies that produce heaps of "highly effective drugs" for the treatment of bees from various diseases!

Let's move on to specific data and their interpretation ...

So, the first material is data on the loss of bees over the past 10 years according to Bee Informed organization . The graph shows, that in the US, average bee losses have increased from 25-30 %% to 35-40% per year. Professional beekeepers always say that these are exaggerated figures that have nothing to do with reality. But, this is not entirely true.

 

Professionals also have bee losses, but they are significantly less than those of amateurs and beekeepers with small apiaries. We are also agree with this. The reason, as a rule, is that amateurs are trying to conduct eco-friendly beekeeping and to use as little as possible chemicals intended to treat bees from various diseases. At a minimum, they use them in the event of illness of their bees.

 

Professional beekeepers are always try to act ahead of the curve, as are poultry and livestock breeders. Why wait for the animals to get sick? This always results in waste of time and money. All measures for the treatment or, more precisely, for the prevention of diseases are carried out within clearly defined terms, regardless of the presence or absence of a real disease. Therefore, diseases occur less frequently and the losses from them are less. If the main task of the apiary is pollination or rearing queens, then the amount of chemicals in the combs and honey does not matter at all for them.

 

But, as it can be seen from the graphs, the losses of bees both in professional beekeepers and in other beekeepers, have been growing in recent years proportionally despite some difference in absolute values !!!!

In addition to these data, there is a table, which became the result of a survey of beekeepers about the reasons for the death of bees in their apiaries. The result was expected - most of the bees died from infestation with the Varroa mites! I think, that the column "weak in fall" can be safely summed up with the column "died from the Varroa mites" ... Our studies, which we told you about, claim, that this is most likely, the result of an autumn peak in the development of population of Varroa mites, which many beekeepers do not notice during and after Main honey harvest. So, we believe, that 69% of the deaths of the bees in small apiaries occurs from infestation with Varroa mites, which today cannot be completely destroyed by any means! This is a really perfect situation for chemical producers and traders! There are always remains enough mites in the hives to keep their business going! This is a really great business!

Another very interesting result is hidden in the diagram obtained by Bee Informed and is connected with our previous statement about the death of bee colonies in small apiaries from varroatosis even when the beekeepers do not expect this ... That is, from those two peaks in the development of Varroa mites population - spring pre-swarming peak, and summer post-honey harvest peak ...

 Pay attention to the diagram! What is common between the two seasons -  2014-15 and 2019-20 ... In both cases, more bees died in summer than in winter !!!! These years were extremely warm, and with extremely warm winters ... With temperatures 5-6 degrees above the climatic norm on average !!!

 What does this mean ? The fact is, that in winter, the mites were able to unimpededly breed several new generations in winter brood of worker bees, and to increase their population 6-8 times compared to ordinary years, when winters were cold! In the same way, our families of the experimental apiary died in the 2019-20 season - E-1 family died already at the beginning of June, that is, after the very first spring peak in the growth of the mites population, which became lethal for her, and the 8-1 family died after honey harvest, having lost strength due to massive damage of young bees by the mites and simply melted by the mid of September ... Just what the column "weak in fall" in the table with the results of a survey of beekeepers of small apiaries says!

 

What does all this say .... It says, that despite the advertising-oriented results of "successful use" of various oils and chemicals, they are not very effective in real life! To quote from an American Bee Journal article ... "  Four chemical control options show the greatest potential for better survival in survey results for the past four seasons. Essential oils Apiguard and ApiLifeVar show about a 30% greater survival, and use of Apivar about a 29% better survival. Oxalic acid vaporization demonstrated an 11% better survival over past three years, but survival improvement of Oxalic acid drizzle was minor and in only one of the last three seasons. "....  Just advertising !  ....

The lack of effectiveness of drugs against Varroa mites is confirmed by this table, given in the journal article.

Pay attention to the bottom line of this table ... It tells you, that with only fifteen percent of the family infected by Varroa mites, as a rule, no drugs can already save it! They simply will not kill all the mites in the family, and they cannot repair the damages caused by the mites! None of the medicines!  The family of bees is doomed to death because the brood is massively damaged, because almost all young bees in the family are already infected with viruses, including the wing deformation virus... All this will soon lead the family to the loss of almost all bees and, accordingly, to its death.

But the fact that bee colonies may find themselves in such a situation is the result of the ineffectiveness of all known types of treatment of bees against varroatosis, which, undoubtedly, beekeepers have carried out. It was carried out using essential oils or amitraza, or fluvalinate, or acids, or all together ... But on average, the result is the same! Bees die anyway ... And according to  diagrams, every year more and more of them die, despite the increasing number of "effective drugs that destroy 99% of Varroa mites" on sale!

This is why we believe, that our Apivox Varroa Eliminator project is so important. Our project is built on the idea that Nature itself has taken care to limit the uncontrolled reproduction of all living beings. Including Varroa mites. Our task is only to understand what is such a limiter for Varroa mites .... It is the finding of this limiter and its competent use that should allow the bees and the mites to live nearby without destroying each other.

 

In this article we used diagrams from two articles of ABJ magazine,

HONEY BEE COLONY MORTALITY - Survey results for the Pacific Northwest by DEWEY M. CARON.

Re-evaluating Varroa Monitoring by RANDY OLIVER ScientificBeekeeping.com

whose .pdf  file is available on the link -

https://abj-fe8.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ABJ-4-2020.pdf

 

And the Bee Informed project documents. https://beeinformed.org/

https://beeinformed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/BIP_2019_2020_Losses_Abstract.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

                                 Copyright Sergey Glebskij 2019 © All rights reserved

Organization of correct wintering of bees as the first stage of anti-mite measures of the new season.

The autumn preparation of families for wintering is the most important stage in the entire cycle of works on suppression of the development of Varroa mites in the bee colonies of your apiary. It is in the fall that both success in future honey harvesting and the possibility of losing bees due to the overdevelopment of the mite population in their families are laid. 

In autumn, the first task facing the beekeeper is to interrupt the mites' reproduction chain in the bee colony. This can be done by removal of sealed brood in the fall, when there are relatively few brood in the colonies. By removing most of the young mites and founding females into a separate colony together with sealed brood, and subjecting them to radical anti-mite treatment after the young bees emerge from the brood, it is possible to achieve a significant purification of the main colonies and of a new, assembled from sealed brood and bees, colony.

At the same time, in all colonies from which the brood was taken and new combs were given, if time permits, the queens will begin a new laying of eggs, from which will born strong and healthy bees, which will become the basis of the bee colony of the next year. At the same time, a huge number of mites will be removed from working bee colonies and they will not be able to start a new reproduction cycle.

The second task is to ensure a smooth transition of colonies to cold wintering with a corresponding decrease and further termination of brood rearing. Cold wintering is the most important stage in the proper maintenance of bees in terms of combating varroatosis. This is especially true for rock bees such as the Caucasian mountain bees and Carnica bees.

This method has been known in Europe for a long time. Carnica is a European breed of bees and it is in Germany that they know how important it is to suppress its natural tendency to constantly grow brood.

It is very important to make the bees to stop brood rearing early and to start it as late as possible. It is very bad when the bees finish growing the brood in November and start growing it again in January. It is thanks to this that the mites can slowly and imperceptibly increase their quantity, and with the first large spring brood, they can sharply increase the population size to a critical value.

This is how our E-1 family died... The graph (Fig) clearly shows that exactly in this family, during the whole winter, was observed a fairly strong fall  of old mites (the presence of which in a narrow strip of projection of the interframe space to the bottom of the hive, we consider to be a sign of the ongoing reproduction process) and already in April we see the appearance the peak in the fall of immature and mature females - that is, a powerful surge in the reproductive activity of Varroa mites.

It is ideal if bees, especially the bees of Carnica breed, begin to actively rear the brood only with the arrival of stable heat and the appearance of sources of pollen in nature. It is from this moment and not earlier that the active development of families begins. During this time, if the bees are warm and supplied with nectar and pollen, they quickly build up strength. In other cases, in the hive better develops and renews the population of Varroa mites, rather than bees.

That is why in Europe and especially in Germany, cold wintering has acquired special importance in the fight against varroatosis. It is she who should not allow the mites to multiply during the winter, when we cannot help the bees to get rid of them. It is this event that will help to avoid, or at least  to reduce greatly, the first spring peak in the growth of Varroa mites population in the next year.

The late-summer peak of the growth of Varroa mites population in the bee colonies, which can be fatal as well as the spring peak.

In our previous article, we focused mainly on the spring peak in the growth of the mites population in the bees families and the problems associated with it. However, the spring peak of the growth of the mites population is not the only one. There is a second such a  peak after the end of honey collection and removal of honey combs . At this point, the family has enough honey, pollen and again free space for the bees to start mass rearing of brood of their spring shift. This is also a very dangerous moment, often leading families to death. In the period after the honey harvest, families have a sharp increase in the quantity of brood, almost similar to the spring, pre-harvest build-up....

At any time of the year, an important method of reducing of the quantity of the mites in the bees families in the apiar  is the maintenance of young families which are not inclined to switch to the swarming state. This allows families to rear very few drone brood, which, if it is a lot and if it is well heated by the bees, causes a sharp increase of the mites population.

In the spring, possible method for improving the condition of the  bees is expand of the nest, which leads both to a decrease in swarming mood and to cooling of the areas where drone brood may be present. It is also appropriate to use building frames, in order to remove periodically drone brood infected with the mites.

But, the death of bees can occur at the moment at which this is least expected ... It would seem, that a strong family worked perfectly at the honey collection, gave a lot of marketable honey ... And after removal of honey combs, it suddenly begins to simply melt before our eyes ...

This is exactly what happened with the 8-1 family in our experimental apiary ...

Despite the simple removal of drone brood at the beginning of June, the growth of the mites population, having slowed down sharply in June-July, continued in August ...

The family did an excellent job at honey collection, giving 60 kilograms of marketable honey in a stationary apiary. During the honey harvest, we observed a mites drop and a fairly large number of bees infected with the wing deformity virus. But the situation during the examinations did not seem critical. The small number of bees in the hive during inspection could be associated with the fact that many flying bees work at this time on nectar collection. There are a lot of them, as the amount of brood reduced, due to the loading of a part of the nest with honey.

Our control of the families of the experimental apiary continued ... By August 1, began a sharp increase in free fall of mature and immature mites  (pic), which, according to our observation, is a sign of the worst case for us - a powerful reproductive flash in the mites population. By August 1,  free fall of the mites of both types averaged 10 mites per day, by August 9 - 20 mites per day, by August 17 more than 100 mites per day ... In fact, repeated situation, which led to the death of the E-1 family, with the exception of lack of drone brood at this time !!!

Since August 24, the family has been treated twice with an interval of about a week with a preparation containing amitrase. At the same time, the daily amount of mites drop of both types ( mature and immature) significantly exceeded 100 mites per day. But, despite the treatment carried out, by September 25, only a handful of bees remained in the hive, which fully corresponds to the picture of the so-called Collapse of the Bee Families. The too late treatment did not help to compensate the death of brood and young bees, which were born with wing deformities affected by the virus. Young bees went out and never returned to the hive. The family just melted before our eyes ... 

What can be opposed to the growth of the Varroa mites population during the honey harvesting season, when there is no possibility to use chemicals ...

We think that it is necessary to use the method, which has proven itself perfectly in Central Europe when working with Karnika bees. This is a method of removal of the sealed brood.

Removal of frames with sealed brood, which can be carried out during the period of  growing of bees families before the main honey collection with the goal to prevent swarming and to create offshoots, also sharply reduces the number of Varroa mites in bee colonies, and significantly contributes to the fact, that disease will not take a threatening character in the main families even in the absence of other Varroa mites' control measures.

In addition, holding such an event in June, before the main honey collection, can, under certain conditions, increase honey productivity by reducing brood rearing, and families from which the brood was selected, can be treated with formic acid ( if remaining before the main honey collection time allows this), which will be very effective at this stage. After all, there is no sealed brood in the family and all the mites are on the bees and are accessible for acaricidal preparations.

In the process of honey collection, bees themselves usually create conditions that are not very good for the reproduction of the mites ... This can be seen from the graphs of the mites drop in all families. But even at this time, it is possible to influence the mite population using methods of temporary limitation of queen's egg laying and removal of sealed brood. Unfortunately, such measures during the period of honey collection cannot be radical, otherwise there will be losses of marketable honey due to the weakening of the strength of bee colonies.

At the same time, to offshoots, in which all sealed brood from the apiary was collected,  can be given sealed queen cells or they can rear new queen by themselves. Moreover,  there will be no brood for about two to three weeks for natural reasons. At the same time, all sealed brood  will turn into young bees, on which the entire mites population of your apiary  will be! There is no marketable honey in these young families, so nothing prevent to treat them with any acaricidal preparations, both natural (formic acid) and chemical.

Thus, you will free the working families from 70-80 %% of mites by removing sealed brood and you can destroy 70-80 %% of remaining mites by treating the bees with formic acid ... At the same time, young families created on the basis of sealed brood, after the release of young bees and their subsequent treatment with acaricidal preparations, and best of all, with the same formic acid, will also lose 70-80 %% of Varroa mites.

This technique can simultaneously extinguish both the first - spring and second - summer peaks of Varroa mites population growth.

Thus, to keep bee colonies healthy with minimal use of chemical acaricidal preparations, it is imperative to carry out exactly two blocks of events, each of which is important in its own way. And never forgetting especially about the second - the summer peak of the mites population growth. Of course, the spring peak of the mite population growth must be suppressed unambiguously. But if a strong treatment of bees against Varroa mites was carried out in the fall and there is not much of the mites left till the spring, then this peak may pass unnoticed or the signs of its presence will be blurred...  And in such situation the second peak, which usually occurs long before the autumn anti-varroatous treating of the bees  can become lethal for the bees families. A family of bees may simply not live up to see it !

APIVOX PROJECT and Serjio Glebskij become a Honorary Members of F. Benton International Beekeeping Association. You can become the members too !

 

APIS MELLIFERA CAUCASICA

F. Benton International Beekeeping Association unite beekeepers from different countries with aim to research Gray Mountain Caucasian honey bee and encourage beekeepers to breed and repopulate their hives with pure breed lines to improve the colonies health, to increase pollination quality and overall productivity.

HISTORICAL ADVANTAGES OF CAUCASIAN BEES; RESEARCH AND EXPORT TO THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE

Georgia has a long history of beekeeping. So far, the oldest remains of honey in the world have been found in Georgia. In 2016, during the construction of BAKU–TBILISI–CEYHAN PIPELINE Archaeologists have found honey remains on the inner surface of clay vessels in ancient tomb, dating back to some 5,500 years. Georgia is the central homeland for the endemic species of Caucasian Mountain Grey honey bees. Caucasian bees have legendary ability to produce large amounts of honey despite cold weather, light rain and unfavorable climatic conditions. Caucasian bee’s proboscis length is about 7.3 mm, therefore it can reach nectar that its competitors can not.

At the beginning of the 20th century, at the dawn of industrial farming, many countries faced sometimes formidable challenge of increasing agricultural productivity by naturally stimulating the plants that had been declared a priority for national farming and the agro-industry. Numerous attempts to enhance the efficiency of local beekeeping farms did not lead to tangible results. It was then that a program arose for the US Department of Agriculture and other countries to search for the introduction of best suitable bee breeds capable of providing the farming with the most important functionality - pollination.

The state of beekeeping at the beginning of the XIX century, the lack of development of the whole teachings about the variability of bee traits did not allow for the consolidation of practical solutions to the problem. It was decided to look to different continents and countries in search of an acceptable bees. Western scientists began to establish contacts and study the works of leading beekeepers of USSR. The work was not in vain - the choice fell on the Grey Caucasian Bee, which was referred to as Mountain Grey. The irreplaceable contribution in research of Caucaian bees made by such luminaries as A.M.Butlerov (1828-1886), K.A.Gorbachev (1864—1936), V.V. Alpatov (1898 -1979), I.N. Klingen (1851-1922), F. Benton (1852-1919), E.F. Phillips (1878-1951) played a decisive role in determining the commercial vector of cooperation beteen Georgian and foreign beekeepers and worldwide popularization.

The merit of the American entomologist Frank Benton, who opened the export of the Caucasian Bee to Western countries, is great. Benton worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His mission was to search for the best bee species that would be ideally suited to the U.S. agriculture. For that purpose, Benton traveled to many European and Asian countries. Benton is also known for invention of special mailing cage for shipping queen bees (Benton Cage). In 1905 F. Benton visited Georgia. Here is what K.A. Gorbachev writes about this visit ("Beekeeping Life", No. 2, 1907, p. 45): “A famous American beekeeper visited us in the Caucasus. The purpose of his visit is to get acquainted with the Caucasian bee... Benton is delighted with the Caucasian bees and predicts the most brilliant future... There is another huge advantage for the Caucasian bees: their tongue is longer than that of the bees of Central Europe”. Benton recommended the import of Georgian bees to the US Department of Agriculture and American beekeepers.

Thanks to Benton's visit the export shipments were carried out from the Tbilisi Silk Station to the USA and Europe. This is what Polish beekeepers wrote, who imported the queens from Georgia - “The bees amazed us by taking honey from Clover and Lucerne while the local bees did not fly up to these plants”. It is necessary to explain why exactly Polish beekeepers paid attention to the fact that the Caucasian bees gather honey from a red clover. In pre-revolutionary Russia at that time, red clover was almost completely absent in the farming with its three-field system. Multifield with legumes as crops enriching the soil with nitrogen was more common on the estates of Poland than in the estates of Russia. The significance of the length of the proboscis, as a sign that determines the suitability of bees for working on red clover, was widely discussed in the first decade XX century printed media. This time includes the invention of a large number of different glossometer devices, which make it possible to measure the depth from which bees can extract nectar. All this led to a more professional scientific study of the physical and biological characteristics of the Caucasian mountain grey bees which were named as Apis mellifera var. caucasica (1916).

On these observations grew the research of I. N. Klingen about the beekeeping industry. From 1907 to 1911, the practice of using Caucasian bees to pollinate red clover was put into practice. I.N. Klingen’s work showed that the Caucasians are a factor in the very significant increase in the yield of red clover. A. S. Skornikov was able to show that of the Caucasians grey mountain bees, the bees of Mingrelia region (West Georgia) along the Inguri River have the longest proboscis ever measured, namely 7.21 mm.

In 1932, Everett Franklin Phillips, a professor at Cornell University (a key figure in American beekeeping), arrived in Georgia from the United States on a special mission. He acquainted with Caucasian bees even more and focused on its importance and great future prospects. As a result of different scientific researches, Benton’s and Phillips’s missions in Georgia, as well as the US Department of Agriculture recommendations, the United States made a historic decision to conclude a trade agreement with the USSR, which provided for the direct imports of queen bees from Georgian SSR to the United States.

As it turned out, it is the Caucasian bees who is the absolute champion of pollination of deep blossom plants and legumes, which accounts for 47% of world agricultural crops - this is clover and alfalfa, and beans and acacia and peanuts (USA is in the first place in terms of peanut cultivation), this is both lentils and soybeans and peas and so on. In Poland, Scotland and the United States, bee breeding apiaries were created in order to boost Caucasian queen rearing. Here is what V.V. Alpatov writes on the results of the export of a Caucasian bees to US - “As an indicator of the role played by the Caucasian bees in beekeeping in America, I will cite my count of apiaries in the United States selling queens of one breed or another. This count is based on a list of breeding facilities published by the Department of Agriculture in 1943 (Bulletin E 297) It states that there are 43 Mountain Grey breeding apiaries in the United States, including the first in Iowa, accounting for approximately 25% of all queens produced in the USA. It is the biometric length of the proboscis and persistence in in nectar collection that allows the Caucasian bee to be indispensable in the huge industry of legumes in the USA and European countries”.

Frank Benton

Frank Benton (July 5, 1852 – February 28, 1919) was an prominent American entomologist, researcher, beekeeping innovator and author. Benton studied at Michigan Agricultural College, University of Tennessee, the University of Munich, and the University of Athens. He was a member of various organizations: Bureau of Entomology in the United States Department of Agriculture, Entomological Society of Washington, North American Beekeepers Association, National Geographic Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also known for invention of special mailing cage for shipping queen bees (Benton Cage).

At the dawn of industrial farming, many countries faced sometimes formidable challenge of increasing agricultural productivity by naturally stimulating the plants that had been declared a priority for national farming and the agriculture industry. Numerous attempts to enhance the efficiency of local beekeeping farms did not lead to tangible results. It was then that a program arose for the US Department of Agriculture for the introduction of best suitable bee breeds capable of providing the farming with the most important biological functionality - pollination.

For this aim Benton traveled to many countries from Europe to Palestine and Far East. In 1905 Benton visited Georgia to further investigate the Caucasian honeybees which were already known to US beekeepers from 1890.

Here is what K. A. Gorbachev writes about this visit ("Beekeeping Life", No. 2, 1907, p. 45): “A famous American beekeeper visited us in the Caucasus. The purpose of his visit is to get acquainted with the Caucasian bee... Benton is delighted with the Caucasian bees and predicts the most brilliant future... There is another huge advantage for the Caucasian bees: their tongue is longer than that of the bees of Central Europe”.

Benton greatly supported the import of Caucasian (Georgian) Mountain Grey honey bees to the United States. It was only after Benton had been placed in charge of bee culture in the United States Department of Agriculture and made his second trip abroad, that Caucasian bees became well known in the USA. Based on a list of breeding facilities published by the US Department of Agriculture in 1943 (Bulletin E 297) there were 43 Mountain Grey breeding apiaries in the United States, including the first in Iowa, accounting for approximately 25% of all queens produced in the USA.

The merit of Benton, who opened the export of the Caucasian Bee to Western countries, is great. During his research of big bees (Apis dorsata) in India Benton contracted "jungle fever". Benton died at Fort Myers, February 28, 1919.

The Founders, Executive Council & Association Members

OUR RESEARCHES, WHICH WE MAKE TOGETHER WITH ASSOCIACION

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Apivox Varroa Eliminator Project

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Our mission is to support beekeeping globally and help to popularize Caucasian bees among commercial and individual beekeepers, and support government beekeeping programs. Caucasian bees proved their ability and today they are considered as one of the best choice for many beekeepers in the world. Membership connects you with other beekeepers, organizations and researchers and supports a common effort to promote Caucasian bees and help the agricultural industry with better pollination capability.
Join our effort. It’s worth it.

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEMPERATURE IN THE NEST, THE AMOUNT OF BROOD AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POPULATION OF VARROA MITES IN THE FAMILY OF BEES.

 During our Apivox Varroa Eliminator project, we are constantly trying to identify the relationship between the state of the bee colony and the population of Varroa mites parasitizing in it. One of the important observations is the relationship between the temperature in the "streets" of the bee nest in spring and the growth of the amount of mites drop.

It is believed, and we in principle agree with this, that the free fall of the mites is proportional to the size of the mite's population. We believe that this relationship is quantitatively much more complex than scientists believe, but in general it is so ...

Thus, with a number of simplifications and assumptions, we will also assume that the stable growth of free fall of the mites tells us about the growth of the tick population, and its stable decrease, about the process of reducing the size of the mite's population. In our opinion, the stable amount of the mites falling freely on the sticky board indicates some stabilization in the development of the mite's population.

In order to understand the state of the bee colony and the presence of brood in it, temperature sensors were placed in the center of all the "streets" between the frames of the experimental colony. Our results provided data for building the chart, which  you can see below. The measurement range is from September 23, 2019 to May 30, 2020. The bars are the temperature distribution in the "streets" of the nest of bees for each measurement, the red line is the temperature level equal to +30C, the yellow graph is the quantity of the mites of all ages falling on sticky board in units per day ...

So, what dependencies do we see ...

     1) At the end of September, the drop in temperature in the "streets" led to the complete impossibility of laying eggs by the queen, and, accordingly, to the complete cessation of reproduction of the mites. The mites drop began to decline, because most of the old mites, according to our data, die during the reproduction process. The  quantity of the mites starting to stabilize.

     2) Since January, when the outside temperatures became positive or slightly negative, about 2 "streets" of the nest were heated by bees to the temperatures above 32-33C, which allow the queen to lay eggs. This led to the beginning of the renewal of the mites population. At the same time, the mites drop did not grow much, since the quantity of the brood was not big.

     3) From March 26, when sufficiently high positive outside temperatures were established, the bees switched to stable heating of seven or eight "streets" of the nest to the temperatures of 33-35C. This led to the possibility of brood rearing in the cells of these  frames. This led to a steady increase of the mite's population, which received a lot of space for multiple, unlimited growth. This led to the death of old females during the reproduction process and to increase of falling mites.

     4) In May, the family went into the state of preparation for swarming. The temperature at the periphery of the nest has significantly increased to 33-35C. This allowed the bees to lay drone brood and queen cells at the periphery of the nest. The mites population received at its disposal not only a huge amount of brood of worker bees, but also drone brood. The growth of the population accelerated many times, bringing the family in early June to collapse ... The growth of the mites population was accompanied by a corresponding fall of young immature mites and dying founding females to sticky board...

The graph clearly shows the point of the beginning of the growth of the mites population (arrow) corresponding to stable heating of more than half of the frames of the nest , which corresponds to the appearance of brood of worker bees in them.

Thus, we can state that:

1. The appearance in the nest of bees in winter at least one "street" with a temperature above + 30C indicates the beginning of the recovery of the mites population.

2. The presence in the nest of bees in the spring of more than half of the "streets", heated for more than 32-33C can be a sign of the beginning of active reproduction of the mites in the brood of worker bees. From this point on, the mites population begin to grow rapidly.

3. A rise in temperature at the periphery of the nest to 33-35C means the beginning of the mass laying of drone brood and a catastrophic increase in the populations of Varroa mites.

Thus, there is a direct and almost linear relationship between the increase in the number of heated nesting frames and the growth of both mites drop and the mites population itself in the bee colony. For beekeepers, this can be an indicator for determining the stages of the fight against Varroa mites in bee colonies of their apiaries.