RECOGNITION OF THE IMPORTANCE OF APIVOX PROJECT IN THE WORLD.

 Apivox Smart Monitor is a unique application for acoustic control of bee colonies, which allows to find out the state of bee family without opening the hive. Thanks to the method, used in the app, it allows not to open the hive of bee colony if it is not necessary, and not to disturb the bees if you do not need to make something inside the hive.

The application by itself, and methods, used in the application, have received the approval and support of a wide variety of communities and organizations in the world.

 

The very first to recognize the importance and significance of our work was the Spanish Beekeeping Community AEA (Asociación Española de Apicultores https://www.aeapicultores.org/), which awarded us third place in the Idea Apicola competition.

Another organization, in which we are honorary members, is the Association for the Conservation of the Caucasian Bee in Georgia. Our work should become an integral part of the system for monitoring beekeeping resources in the country. https://amcinternational.org/apivox_smart_monitor.html

Our articles on the basics of acoustic control, new methods of keeping bees and controlling Varroa mites have been published in various online and print media.

On the European resource for science news and significant projects - CORDIS. https://cordis.europa.eu/search?q=%27glebskij%27&p=1&num=10&srt=Relevance:decreasing

In the USA, our device was mentioned in the section of new developments in beekeeping of one of the most significant magazines Bee Culture. https://www.beeculture.com/product-reviews-4/.

In addition, the US government agency USDA / NIFA / Institute of Food Production and Sustainability has assessed our work as a worthy and much needed project.

  Besides this, we were offered participation in the government project USDA NIFA SBIR. But, unfortunately, we are not an American company and cannot take part in this project and receive grants for it. If only we have a representative office in the United States.

 

Thus, the leading organizations and communities recognized our projects as useful and important for the whole world.

A LITTLE REMARK ABOUT THE USE OF THE MESH BOTTOM IN THE HIVE.

From some time, beekeepers began to use hives with an open bottom, covered with a mesh. Initially, this mesh belonged to the hygienic bottom of the hive, whose task was to collect Varroa mites falling from the bees and to prevent them from returning on the bees.

Then, for some unknown reason, someone decided that the bottom of the hive should be opened. Then, it will be will become cooler in the hive in summer, and in winter the condensation from the inner lid of the hive will drip not to the bottom, but simply to the ground. It would seem like a sensible idea. And many beekeepers decided to try ... Someone started to produce hives with mesh bottom. This is especially true for polyurethane foam hives.

But, dear friends, let's take a look at the life of bees….

Firstly, the bees, like all insects, are cold-blooded. In order to work actively, they need to warm up by doing physical exercises. Bees need to shake and flap their wings, in order to reach their working temperature close to +32-36C. Any cooling of the nest leads to the fact that all vital processes of both bees and brood begin to fade. Bees have to spend time, energy and honey on maintaining the temperature in a holed pipe! And we know how bees do not like it. They try to cover all possible holes which prevent them from maintaining the desired microclimate with propolis.

Secondly, as we know, bees also need a certain moisture to rear brood. When you rear queens in an incubator, you keep the relative humidity up to 70%. Why do you think the rest of brood doesn't need it? It has been scientifically proven that the survival rate of eggs and larvae increases with increasing humidity in the hive. We, by opening the bottom of the hive to all winds, prevent the bees from maintaining the desired humidity.

Thus, by opening the bottom of the hive, we distract the bees from doing work that is useful to them and to us. Instead of collecting honey, they will warm the brood, try to seal all the holes in the hive, and try to keep moisture and heat around the larvae by covering them with a crust from their bodies.

It is scientifically proven that old bees that fly in the field for nectar can bestly heat the nest and warm the brood. This means that instead of flying for honey, they will create a crust from their bodies that protects the brood from cold, wind and dryness.

So is the imaginary coolness created by the open bottom worth the loss of honey and the lag in the development of families?

 

First measurement of autumn 2021 using Winter mode of Apivox Smart Monitor

 

Apivox Smart Monitor. Check of two bee families in the fall.

Cold weather. The temperature is about 12C. Bees don't fly. Ventilation is slightly open in all hives. Most of the bees are inside the "streets" ( between frames). Above the frames there are individual bees. We made control of 2 bee families using Apivox Smart Monitor - families E1 and E3.          

In E1, the bees are calm and busy with in-hive works. When trying to see signals in the Monitoring mode, I had to increase the gain so that a yellow warning icon appeared on the screen. This suggests that diagnostics can sometimes be erroneous due to a very weak signal, but in principle it is still possible to work with the device. In the E1 family, the upper ventilation window is open, while it is quite cold outside. Therefore, we see an increased level of emergency heating, although it is not described in the diagnostics, since the increase is not significant.

In E3, the bees are much calmer and the diagnostics indicate the absence of significant works. It's right. The bees are very quiet. The results of brood control in this family in which we destroyed the rest of sealed brood and slightly opened the upper ventilation window  indicate that there is no open brood at all. The picture absolutely clear and unequivocal.

Acoustic control in the family, in which queen cells were deleted, and in which the worker bees started to lay unfertilized eggs.

 Acoustic control was carried out in the T1.2 family, in which queen cells were deleted, and in which the worker bees started to lay unfertilized eggs. The result was expected. The activity level is very low, although it is present. Brood control in the daytime showed the presence of brood care equal in power to other work in the hive. The center of the graph is near zero. This speaks of weak in strength, but constantly present signals of brood care, which in this situation is scattered over all frames and requires heating and ventilation ... This fully confirms what is written in the book ( Manual) about signals of brood care ...

To order the app go to apivox-smart-monitor.weebly.com

Diagnostics of Apivox Smart Monitor device, in the family from which the queen was removed, and a part of brood was taken for making offshoot.

This is a common situation. We made an offshoot with an old queen. The main family was left without a queen and after a while laid queen cells. And this situation is very similar to pre-swarming situation ... There is also a lot of brood in the family and the queen cells are also laid. Everything is very similar. The brood and especially the queen cells require constant intensive heating and despite the excellent work on honey collection, maintaining the temperature regime for rearing of a healthy queen becomes one of the main jobs in the family ... If not the most main one ... After all, the family will die without a healthy queen ...

This situation can be seen if you suddenly decide to get diagnostics using Apivox Smart Monitor in Swarming Control mode ...

Thus, Swarming Control mode can theoretically be used to monitor the conditions for rearing of the queens in family-nursery or in an ordinary family in order to understand how intensively the process of rearing the queens is going and what are - good of not so good they presumably will be...  This mode is differential, and shows what prevails in work inside the hive - brood care, or works related to honey. Accordingly, the longer both arrows are in the red zone, the more time the bees devote to caring for the brood and queen cells.

SMALL PEAKS OF REPRODUCTION OF VARROA MITES AND THE GENERAL TREND IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR POPULATION IN THE FAMILIES OF HONEY BEES.

In early spring of 2021, when we began experiments on suppression of the development of Varroa mites in honeybee colonies, we noticed characteristic trends associated with the reproductive cycles of mites and bees. We called them small peaks of the mites reproduction. These peaks have a negative shape and an interval of about 16-20 days between the negative peak and the positive peaks of the mites drop, and they are associated with the maturation of the bees brood and the gradual release of young bees from the cells. We consider these negative peaks to be the moments of mass entry of Varroa mites into the brood for reproduction.

This statement may raise some doubts. After all, it is theoretically possible that these cycles are associated with the cyclicity of the mites entering the brood for reproduction and, accordingly, leads to the cyclicity of  peaks of the mites mortality... But this is too correct for wildlife ... Even being born almost on the same day, it is unlikely that all the mites will die also in one day. It is not for nothing that scientists talk about the lifespan of the mites equal to 2.5-3 months or about three reproduction cycles in their life ... And again, "approximately"! And there are always exceptions, both in one and the other direction. But most of all, we are convinced of the correctness of our statement by the fact that, according to the graph, at the same exact moments, there are the same minimums in free fall of a young immature mites ... And they are definitely not connected with any previous cycles of reproduction... They die and are thrown away by the bees when young fully matured individuals leave the cells and old females that have lost their strength die. And these peaks ( death and fall of old females and  fall of immature females) are clearly linked to each other. The the dips are also related and are strictly the same for both categories of the mites!

That is why we believe that the dips or negative peaks are associated with the mass entry of founding females into the brood cells, and the following positive peaks of the mites drop are the result of natural death of immature females, as well as old founding females who have lost their last strength in the process of reproduction.

The same peaks are clearly visible on the mites drop plot for 2019-20. They are characterized by a temporary complete, or almost complete, cessation of the fall of old females. This is apparently because they are all in the brood cells for reproduction, and only some of the mites which are feeding on adult bees  unexpectedly die and fall down on sticky board.

 

But besides this, it was noticed, that these peaks, so characteristic in spring, begin to blur and disappear in summer and winter, turning into an almost flat line ... At first this puzzled us, but after thinking and analyzing the data of 2019-21, which we received in our apiary and in the apiary of our partners, we understood the reason for this phenomenon.

The source of this phenomenon, most likely, lies in a fairly simple phenomenon - the lifespan of the mites, which, according to scientists, is 2.5-3.0 months. We have already written, that free fall of the mites which we see at the moment, reflects the process of their birth that took place those same 2.5-3 months ago. Usually, the mites fall,  dead from natural causes. While the mites are young and full of strength, they live, multiply and feed on bees and do not fall down dead or exhausted ... But each reproduction process takes away their vitality ... And after 2-3 months, having worn out enough, they can already die and fall down. Weaker and because of this earlier dying mites make up the small and even drop, which we can see in summer and in winter. And the main, mass death of the mites occurs 2.5-3 months after their birth, and exactly this we observe in the form of two peaks of the mites drop - the spring pre-swarming, and the summer post-honey harvest peaks of the mites drop! Let's see how it happens ...

 

If in the autumn the bees were treated against mites and the wintering was cold, then from January to early April there is a slow and unobtrusive process of mites reproduction in a relatively small amount of brood. The result of this process is the death of a limited number of old mites, plus a small number of mites dying from other natural causes. This creates a small, more or less even mites drop  onto the sticky board. April, May, June, due to the rapid increase in the number of brood in bees, become the months of rapid growth of the mites population ... But it is difficult to notice this from the fall on sticky board ... If in the first half of spring we see the growth of the fall of old females, which have lost their last strength in the process of reproduction , then in the second half of spring season, the fall stops abruptly and drops to almost zero values. This does not mean that there are no mites in the bee colony! This means that the last females of the previous year of birth died out and only young females of Varroa mites, born this year during the winter and early spring, remained in the family of bees! They are full of energy and will not die and fall on sticky board for another 2.5-3 months! This means, that their death and fall will occur only in July, August, September ... Moreover, in the interval between mid-May and July, the fall of the mites will be insignificant, since these mites die before their due date ...

If the wintering was warm and the bees begin to actively grow brood in January, February and March, then the peak of their death and fall will occur in April, May, June, and the peak of the rapid reproduction of the mites and their population growth will occur during the same period. In this case, a dip in free fall of the mites may not occur and, on the contrary, immature individuals will appear in it, which are the sign of a peak in the process of the mites reproduction! In fact, the winter peak of the mites reproduction and the early spring peak will merge into one powerful peak in the mites reproduction, which in practice will most likely lead to the death of the bee colony in late spring or early summer.

Thus, if during the control of free fall of the mites in May, June and July you will see the average values ​​of the number of mites falling per day close to zero, this, unfortunately, does not mean that your bees are free of Varroa mites. This means that the peak of active reproduction of the new generation of the mites has passed and a period of smooth and imperceptible increase in their number has begun. And this will continue until the summer post-honey harvest peak of their reproduction.

Unfortunately, in temperate latitudes this is the time of the main honey harvest and the fight against the mites at this moment is practically impossible. Therefore, the main moments suitable for suppressing the development of Varroa mites are, firstly, the moment of the appearance of the first mass brood in the amount of one, but not more than two brood frames of sealed brood (the end of April), and the end of the honey collection when there is a minimum amount of brood in the nest (August). In the first case, the brood can be removed, and in the second, it can be removed or destroyed. In both cases, the bees have enough time to recuperate the colony both before the main honey flow and before hibernation. The main thing is that new generations of bees will be healthy, and no chemicals will be used.

 

NUMBER OF SMALL PEAKS OF VARROA MITES REPRODUCTION, ALLOWING TO REMOVE SEALED BROOD WITH THE GREATEST EFFICIENCY.

ANALYSIS OF DATA OF THE MITES DROP ON STICKY BOARD DURING THE SEASONS 2019-2020

 Analysis of data obtained during observations in 2019-20 unambiguously confirms the undulating nature of the mites fall, which is directly related to the reproduction process of both the bees and  the mites.

The graph of the average number of Varroa mites falling on the sticky board per day in the E1 family without regard to age - blue graph, and  the average number of immature and young unfertilized Varroa mites falling on a sticky board per day - yellow graph.

 

When analyzing the graphs, it can be seen that periodically,  there are sharp dips in the fall of the mites. This indicates, that the mites have entered the brood cells for reproduction. The deeper the dips, the stronger the mites drop splash will be after that ... The more female mites have entered the cells, the larger the next  waves of the mites drop will be .... Although, as we know, this connection is not direct ... The death and falling of the mites on sticky board occurs 2.5-3 months after their birth, and during this time the female mites  manages to produce 3-4 reproductive cycles ... The cycle looks like this - about 12 days of reproduction in the brood, 12-14 days of feeding on worker bees ... When these cycles coincide in a large number of females, and they all enter the brood together, then the fall decreases sharply by about the same 12 days, and as the young bees start to emerge from the brood, it slowly increases to its peak...

Simultaneously with the growth of free fall, the population of the mites also grows. After all, the larger the population becomes, the more mature females will begin to reproduce and the more they will die off in 2,5-3 months ...

It is also clearly seen on the graph that the fall of immature mites appears only at a high level of infestation, approaching the conditionally permissible maximum. According to the recommendations of the European and American Beekeeping Associations and scientists, up to 5 mites  falling on a sticky board  per day are permissible, and 10 mites per day are considered to be a critical tmount and such a family of bees require urgent treatment. These are more observational than real scientific data, but this is accepted in Europe, England and the United States ... The graph shows that with a small mites drop, we will not see immature individuals on sticky board, but when approaching the upper limit of the permissible range,  you will find on sticky board deutonymphs, immature females and young unfertilized females ... And this is the last warning that it is high time to urgently take action. And it is especially effective at such a moment to remove all sealed brood, immediately after the nearest sharp dip in the everage number of the mites falling on sticky board , which tell us, that  the mites already entered the brood cells for further reproduction! Although, with such a warning, it is already possible to take additional, less environmentally friendly measures such as the use of acaricidal drugs.

For example, let's look at the chart again. We see that in the first year (2019) after receiving the packeges with bees, which were treated with acaricidal preparations in 2018 and had a fairly low quantity of Varroa mites, the family reached the critical point in the size of the mites population only before the beginning of August. This was also helped by the creation of a brood-containing offshoot  from the part of this family. But, if the bees had not reduced rearing  of brood in the fall, then death of the bee family could have occurred already in 2019. Death did not occur and the mites went to winter together with the bees ... The population of the mites successfully overwintered and began to recover imperceptibly in late winter-early spring ... And as we can see, it showed the first massive entry into the brood around April 4, and the warning about the need for urgent action appeared already around April 21 ... The first immature mites  appeared in the mites drop! This means that  the amount of the mites entered the brood cells  on April 4, was very serious !!! A huge number of young mites came out of the cells together with young bees! And indeed, the next generations of the mites finished off this family in May !

Thus, it can be stated that if the beekeeper controls the mites drop on the sticky board, then he has an excellent tool for determining the moments when it is the best time comes to remove sealed brood and remove up to 80% of mites or more from the bee colony ... He is no longer blind and helpless in front of these hidden parasites, and can quite clearly see all the ideal moments for inflicting the most painful blow on them. In addition, it can be stated that there are a lot of such moments, and the beekeeper only needs to choose the moment to strike the mites population, which corresponds to the strength of the bee colony. If the moment of mass entry of the mites  into the brood in spring has come, but the strength of the colony is still insufficient for removal of the brood, then the beekeeper will have to continue controlling the mites drop in order not to miss the next opportune moment. But now we understand that there are several such moments, and having missed one of them, we can always wait for the next appropriate moment. It is always important to know what lies ahead and what we can count on. And this is the path to success in any struggle!

So, what a beekeeper-practitioner should know ...

If, when controlling free fall of the mites on the sticky board, after successive growth, there is a sharp drop in the average number of mites falling on the sticky board per day, then we can say that there has been a massive entry of the mites into the brood for reproduction. With low quantity of the mites population and in springtime, the dip can be up to zero, or to values ​​close to it. In summer and autumn, with a high values of the mites in bee colonies, the drop may not be up to zero, but to values ​​significantly different from the previous trend ... And this means that the best moment has come for removing brood from the colony (or destroying it) in order to sharply decrease the mites population in a colony of bees ...

The duration of such a dip is about 12 days, and if you control the mites drop once every 7-10 days, then you will never miss it!

 

REMOVAL OR DESTROYING OF THE BROOD OF WORKER BEES - WHAT IS THE BEST METHOD OF COMBATING VARROA MITES.

Today we will consider two methods of Varroa mites control, which are based on the destruction of mites that are in the process of reproduction in the brood of worker bees.

One of the methods, namely the sealed brood removal method, has its roots in the beekeeping traditions of Germany. This method is fairly well known for removing drone brood during the pre-swarming season when drone brood is exposed to mite raids. Removal of the frames with drone brood is already a classic of the method. The brood removal method we are working on this year is somewhat more complicated and has 2-3 stages. But it is based on the same actions as when working with drone brood.

The second method came to us from Spain and is practiced by some professional beekeepers who believe that it is faster and more convenient than the brood removal method ... This is a method of destroying the sealed brood of worker bees in the period before honey harvest. This method consists in the fact that the beekeeper, using honey fork or similar, quickly destroys all cells of infected by Varroa mites sealed worker  bee brood on all frames in the nest. The damaged brood is not removed, but the frame is placed back in the nest. It is believed that the mites and all their offsprings will also die in the destroyed cells. After that, a strip impregnated with a slow-acting preparation of amitrase is placed in the nest to treat worker bees from the mites feeding on them.

Let's consider the pros and cons of both methods, which are so close in essence, and so different in execution ...

The brood selection method is somewhat longer than the method of its destruction and requires more resources. If the process of working with nest frames is completely the same - you need to inspect the entire nest and to select all frames with sealed brood, then further actions when shredding the brood are easier and faster. You need to take a fork and quickly destroy the cells and to  damage the brood of bees. When removing brood, it is necessary to select technical colonies for collecting brood and to move the frames with the sealed brood in them. After that, it is necessary to ensure the emergence of young bees from the brood in technical colonies in the absence of new brood, and to treat them with natural acids or acaricides. At the same time, the main families of the apiary will  remain free of chemicals. When the brood is destroyed, the procedure does not end there either ... Strips with amitraz are placed in all hives with destroyed brood, which slowly evaporates and kills some of the mites parasitizing on the bees.

 

Destroyed brood mixed with polen from neighboring cells becomes protein feed for worker bees, who will clean and restore destroyed cells, simultaneously throwing out dead mites ...  But, there is a high probability that the founding female mites in the destroyed cells will not die completely, but will climb on worker bees, who will come to restore these cells ... That is why it is impossible to talk about the real effectiveness of this method. Ideally, it should be equal to the effectiveness of using amitraza in a family without brood, that is, about 80-90 %% ...

The efficiency of removal of sealed brood for families from which it is removed, is approximately 80%, but it can be even higher when removal of the  brood is made at the moment of the first mass entry of the mites into the brood cells for reproduction, when almost all sexually mature wintered females and young females born in winter and early spring if the winter was warm enough ... For technical families, the processing efficiency is also 80-90 %%, depending on what medicine was used .

It is advisable to use both methods on bee families with sufficient strength after leaving wintering. Destruction and removal of sealed brood shifts the development of colonies by 10-15 days, depending on the number of removed or destroyed combs with brood ... Therefore, in both cases, it is important that bee families have enough food, bee bread and bees to accelerate the rearing of a new generation of young bees.

But these two methods have one significant difference ... If during the destruction of the brood you lose a huge number of future bees, then during the removal of the brood, all these bees will be saved and new colonies can be created from them or the very colonies from which we selected them, can be strengthened.  This way the apiary will be more efficient and will collect more honey and give more packages. In addition, when rearing queens, such powerful prefabricated families can be used as a families-rearers for new queens! The removal of the old queen, the exit of all young bees from the cells with their subsequent processing with acids or acaricides, in fact, without any additional operations, turn these technical families into the families-rearers of the queens!

It is important to add here that both of these methods, according to our calculations, will not be effective in a one-time applying and will be only more or less effective in a two-time applying ... This is what we see in practice. Varroa mites from apiaries do not disappear, and at best they only subside until next spring. Let's show this with a simple arithmetic calculation ...

If in the spring of this year there were 100 mites in a family of bees, then processing them in any way with an efficiency of about 85% will reduce their number to 15 pieces. For 6 months of active reproduction, the mites population will grow 2 in the sixth degree times (doubling every month according to scientists) or in 64 times, and if you are not lucky, then in 128 times. Thus, by the end of the season, there will be from 1000 to 1900 mites in the bee colony. With a one-time treatment, 5% per month will die during the winter, or an average of 30%, and in the spring there will be from 700 to 1200 mites in the family, and this will result in death for the bee family in the spring or in the beginning of summer. With a double-time treatment with an efficiency of about 85%, only from 150 to 220 mites will remain by winter, which, after a decrease of 30% during the wintering period, will ensure in spring the presence in the bee family  from 100 to 150 mites. Basically, we're back to where we started ... even a little worse ...

That is why we say that any of the currently existing methods ensures only the preservation of bees and mites in such a way that the bees more or less survive, and the mites continue to feed the manufacturers of chemical preparations! Thus, we believe that the only way to win this battle without watering the bees with bipin ( amitras-based preparation) seven times per season, as some Belarusian producers of packages and honey do, is to reduce the rate of mites reproduction between spring and autumn treatments - that is, in summer! And this is the main goal of our Apivox Varroa Eliminator project.

AN IMPORTANT TENDENCY IN THE STATE OF VARROA MITES FALLING ON THE STICKY BOARD, WHICH CAN BECOME A MARKER OF THE MOMENT, WHEN IT IS THE BEST TIME TO REMOVE SEALED BROOD, WITH THE GOAL TO ELIMINATE VARROA MITES POPULATION IN BEE COLONY.

As you know, in 2021, our Apivox Varroa Eliminator project start  testing a method of removal of sealed brood to combat Varroa mites. In our experimental apiary, 5 families of bees have been allocated for this. Four of them are in various modifications of our new hive, the fifth (T1) is intended for collecting infected sealed  brood, removed from the rest of the colonies. Testing of the technique began in early April, when there was no brood in the families of bees which we use this season at all.

One of the questions we face in the spring is the question of determining the best time to remove sealed  brood ... And this is what our observations have shown ... An interesting trend has been noticed ...

In the E1 hive in which we removed the only frame of sealed brood 6 days ago, the old mites continue to fall from the worker bees, as it was during the winter and early spring. But in hives E2 and T1 there was a sharp decrease in mites drop to almost zero ... in E2 already within 11 days, and in T1 already within 6 days !!! But in E2 we did not remove the brood,  and in T1, on the contrary, we collect all brood removed from the other hives ... It would seem to be a paradox ... but it is not!  Exactly in the E1 hive, in which there is no brood left for reproduction, the mites end their life on flight bees and fall down at about the same rate as when there was no brood at all!  In the hives, in which 2-3 frames of brood remained, which were eventually sealed during these days, there was a sharp decline in the fall of the mites ... The graph clearly shows that the brood in the E2 hive was sealed approximately 11 days earlier, and on examination we saw that young bees would begin to hatch soon, while the brood in the T1 hive was sealed 5-6 days later. This can also be seen in the color of the lids ... they are still quite light.

Everything is correct! Apparently, all the old female mites went into the first mass brood for reproduction, and there are practically no mites on the bees !!! There is no one to fall down. Old females that will die off during the breeding process will be thrown out by the bees when cleaning the cells only after the young bees emerge from the brood and will end up on the board under the frames with the brood, again sharply raising the average number of falling mites per day !!!

Thus, a sharp drop, almost to ZERO, of the mites falling on sticky board in spring, when the bees set the first mass brood, indicates that practically all Varroa mites are in the brood cells and the best time has come to remove all them from the bee family !

The only question is the strength of the family, which will be left without sealed brood for about 10-14 days .... But if this happens in mid or late April, then in spite of removal of the sealed brood, which will be restored in about 10-14 days, for family development will remain the whole May with the best weather and food supply. At the same time, the maximum possible number of Varroa mites will be removed from the family. As we can see,  they are  practically absent on the bees at all. This is evidenced by the absence of the mites falling on sticky board for almost a week or two ...

So, in essence, we have found the marker that should help practical beekeepers to define the best time in spring,  for removal of sealed  brood, in order to clean the colony from Varroa mites without the use of chemicals.

Control of brood quantity in the middle of April

 In previous article, you saw the results of diagnostic readings of Apivox Smart Monitor, used in brood control mode when no brood was visible in the family, neither open nor sealed.

Today the diagnosis is radically different. In all colonies 1-2 frames of brood, moreover, mostly open. There are not too many sealed brood. 

Pollen appeared in nature and the bees began to actively hatch the brood!

THE FIRST CONTROL OF THE BEES OF EXPERIMENTAL APIARY IN 2021

 

E1- Normal working state. There is excitement and a small emergency heating (seen in the diagram) which tell us about the need of the fast recovery of the temperature. This can be a sign of brood presence. Small intervals of brood heating. It is possible that brood rearing has begun in this family. Almost a frame of honey remained in the family. The extra food was hardly touched.

E2 - Normal working state. There are no signs of brood rearing. There was some honey in one frame. About 1/3 of the box of extra food  was taken.

K1 - Normal working state. A little excitement. There are no signs of brood rearing. The family is slightly larger than the previous ones. There is no honey in the frames. Fully eaten extra feed - 1 box.

DETERMINATION OF THE BEGINNING AND OF THE PEAK OF REPRODUCTIVE FLASH OF VARROA MITES ON THE BASIS OF THE MITES DROP.

It is possible that we will repeat ourselves a little and once again talk about the features of the study of free fall of the mites on sticky board, but this is extremely important. It is important because if you know and understand all this, then one glance at the debris on the sticky board will be enough for you to determine the degree of infection and the danger level of the state of your bees. So, on the basis of data obtained by us over several years of experiments, we can assert that the mites drop in the hive is heterogeneous. It consists of two main groups of individuals.

 The first group consists of young underdeveloped or unfertilized females that did not take part in the increase in the parasite population. The second group consists of dark-burgundy old females that have participated in several breeding cycles and have already outlived their term. Among them there are also two subgroups of individuals, the presence of which can give us information about the events taking place in the hive.

 Usually we are accustomed to notice and to count the mites of the second group in the mites drop. Its first subgroup is the old maroon females, which  can be seen lying more or less evenly over the entire surface of the sticky board. They die while feeding on the bees, and fall down, most likely due to death from age. Sometimes there are live mites among them, which for some reason fall down and die already on the board from hunger. What all these mites have in common is that they fall from worker bees, on which they have been parasitized between reproduction cycles.

 Parasites can fall both in the presence of the process of reproduction of new generations of mites in the brood of bees, and in the complete absence of brood. Basically,  this type of the mites drop simply show the presence of parasites as such and, to a greater or lesser extent, indicate their number. But this information is unreliable, since there may be periods when only young and strong Varroa females remain in the bee family and they are not going to die. The absence of the mites on sticky board at such moments cannot indicate the absence of parasites in the bee colony. This usually happens in May – June, when the overwintered females gradually die off, and in the bee family remain only mature juvenile females of Varroa mites. That is why we do not want and do not recommend using a specific number of the mites falling down on sticky board to predict specific values ​​of Varroa mites population in a bee colony.

 The second subgroup is old mature females that die during the reproduction process. We believe that reproduction is the most costly process in terms of forces, which stimulates the death of old females at the end of the egg-laying process. Their death occurs in sealed cells, in which dead immature or infertile young females also remain. All these individuals are thrown down by the bees when cleaning the cells, after the release of young bees. Such kind of the mites drop appears synchronously with the emergence of young bees from the brood and that is why all these dead mites lie between the frames with the brood. This is a specific sign of the mites drop of the second subgroup.

 What can all this say to the beekeeper?

The uniform fall of old maroon females on sticky board in all parts of the hive, or the fall of the mites of the first subgroup of the second group, speaks primarily of the presence of Varroa mites in the bee family as such. And their number speak about the infestation of  the bee family very conditionally.

 The appearance in the mites drop of the mites of the first group, that is - deutonymphs, young immature females, young infertile females, from almost transparent to bright red, marks a new stage in the development of Varroa mites population. We believe that they end up at the bottom of the hive due to unsuccessful conditions for their development: most likely, due to inappropriate thermal conditions in the brood, which is very far from the center of the nest. And this means that the mites have already occupied the entire centre of the brood part of the nest and came out to its periphery.

 As a rule, the fall of this type of the mites indicates a sharp increase in the parasites population, which takes up a lot of space in the nest and goes to its borders, where it is colder and conditions for the development of young female mites are worse. An increase in this particular type of mites in the total  mites drop with a small number of old dark mites indicates an upcoming powerful surge in the growth of the mites population in the bee colony, or the very beginning of this growth. It is from this moment beekeeper have to take emergency measures must be taken for their neutralization.

  As a rule, an increase in the mites drop of such type of mites precedes an increase in the fall of old maroon mites by 15–20 days. This is a very good indicator for predicting an increase in the number of mites and the imminent appearance of an emergency situation in the bee colony! This is especially important for those, who do not use chemical preparations for mass and repeated treatment of their bees.

On the picture you can see the graph of a separate count of two types of mites for five bee colonies over a year and a half. But the most indicative are two graphs - the graph for the E-1 family and for the 8-1 family. Let's consider the E-1 schedule. It is clearly seen that in the interval 13-14 (April) the growth of free fall of mature mites is not observed, while the increment of free fall of an immature mites warns about the beginning of the mites population growth, which occurs in the interval 14-15 (May) and especially in the interval 15-16 ... (June) This bee family did not survive after point 16. The infestation level  became fatal for it.  Schedule for family 8-1 is flatter. The initial infestation level of this family was lower. But on the interval 13-16 (April-June), it shows the same tendency as the E-1 family - the growth of free fall of an immature mites outstrips the growth of free fall of a mature mites and predicts a significant increase of Varroa mites population. The trend was interrupted by the removal of drone brood, but as can be seen from the graphs, this only delayed the explosive growth of the mites population in this family until the end of  honey harvest. This pattern is typical for the spring development of the mites in a bee colony.

The appearance in the mites drop in a sufficiently large number of old maroon mites of the second subgroup of the second group under the frames with brood mixed with young immature mites of the first group, indicates the development and deterioration of the situation with the quantity of Varroa mites in the family of bees.

 If the appearance of young immature mites indicates the beginning of the growth of the mites population, then the appearance of this mixture of mites of different ages under the brood frames indicates a peak in the reproductive activity of Varroa mites. Measures must be taken immediately. The population of mites could already reach enormous sizes. So the most radical and urgent measures need to be taken.

So, for a practicing beekeeper, this means that if in the spring, pale-colored and/or translucent mites appeared in free fall on sticky board, then urgent measures must be taken to combat Varroa mites. This is a sign, that after 2-3 weeks, the growth of Varroa mites population will become fatal for the family in the absence of measures to combat it. It doesn't matter how many mites you will see on sticky board. The less the better ... As long as there are no pale mites in free fall, you can still calmly do your job. But when they appear, the fight against the mites must be started urgently! Otherwise, the bee family will die.

 The same situation is possible after honey collection. But at this time, it is warm enough and the death of young and immature mites decreases. Therefore, the growth of free fall of the mites can proceed in parallel in groups of mature and immature mites in any quantity. But despite this seasonal difference, the appearance and growth of free fall of immature mites suggests that the beekeeper  needs to take action urgently.

 We assume, that the adoption of measures -  is primarily the selection of all brood,  sealed and open, from the families which should work on honey collection into one family (or several families, depending on the size of the apiary), followed by treatment of only this family with formic or oxalic acid. This will drastically reduce the quantity of Varroa mites in working families and will leave them free from chemicals and acaricides, with which are usually treated all families of the apiary, and which strongly worsening the condition of bees, (and sometimes killing them) and which are making honey unsuitable for export.

 Thus, the control of the appearance and growth of free fall of pale immature or infertile mites - is an excellent indicator of the moment when anti-varroa measures become vital to maintain the strength and vitality of bee colonies. And while it is not too late, beekeeper can use environmentally friendly methods of dealing with Varroa mites, and that is not unimportant !

 

Copyright   Sergey Glebskij   2021   ©  All rights reserved

NEW MODEL OF OBSERVATIONAL BEEHIVE DESIGNED BY APIVOX PROJECT TEAM.

For the use in our experimental apiary, we have developed an observational hive that allows us to carry out experiments on control of parameters of vital activity of the bees using small families.

Unlike older models, this hive is completely demountable like all standard models of the hives. This became possible due to the use of a rather expensive material - synthetic glass 4mm thick. The rest of the material is a pine scantling. The weight of the hive is about 4 kg.

The new hive of the Apivox project, as well as all other hives of our project, has a hygienic bottom with a net and a sticky board for counting the number of Varroa mites falling down from the bees during the life of bee family and development of the mites population. The bottom is detachable and replaceable.

A separate window in the side wall allows you to remove the sticky board without disturbing the bees and to count mites and to clean the board. To do this, you do not need to remove the main shields that cover the hive body from light. All removable elements of the hive are attached with niodimum magnets. This allows them to be removed and replaced quickly and without special tools. The porch is closed by a door, which allows transporting bees or simply limiting their flight.

The hive body has a standard size for 1 frame of any type - Dadan or Ruth or Langstrott.  There are 4 barred ventilation holes in the body-box, allowing you to easily transport or carry bees in this hive or to restrict their flight for a long time. The frame is inserted into the body from above. The body is placed on the bottom and fixed with special eccentric ties.

In standard version, the hive has 1 body. If desired, the hive can be completed with an additional body-box and / or a honey super.

 Inner cover and the roof are assembled into a single structure giving the hive additional rigidity.  There are barred openings in inner cover, which together with opened upper plug provide additional ventilation during transportation.

But the main purpose of these holes and the upper plug in the roof is to provide easy access for acoustic control of the family. In fact, this is a hole for a smartphone on which the Apivox Smart Monitor application is installed, which allows you to monitor the state of bees without opening the hive.

 

This construction is also equipped with eccentric ties, which allows the entire observation hive to be held together into a single rigid structure. There is a handle on the roof, for which the observation hive is easy to carry. Naturally, all transparent elements of the hive are covered with shields made of painted hardboard with a thickness of 3 mm. which, together with plexiglass, gives a wall thickness of about 8 mm. which is quite enough for summer time.

 In winter, the hive can be additionally insulated with sheets of foamed polyethylene. During winter of 20-21, packeges of the bees  purchased by us for the experimental apiary overwintered in such boxes. The wintering was successful. All the bees survived the winter.

This type of hive will be produced in limited quantities for our experimental apiary, for beekeeping courses, for acoustic control courses, for amateur beekeepers, as well as in a simplified version for queens rearing farms. The use of such a hive in scientific and educational processes will improve the visibility of the operations performed to control Varroa mites and during the usage of the method of acoustic control, and will also allow, like all previous models, to observe the life of bees.

 For queen breeders, such a simple one-frame hive will exclude additional difficulties with the maintenance of small-sized hives and their special frames used for mating of young queens. The transparent walls of the hive will allow you to quickly monitor the state of the queen and the beginning of oviposition. This design of the hive can be ordered not with the full-sise frame, but with a  half-frame, which will make the hive even cheaper.

 

Estimated price of a  observational hive with one body-box:

Ø      In the educational version - it will be for the USA with delivery - $ 150,

Ø      The variant for queen breeders (full frame, without glass) -  For the USA with delivery - $ 60.

Ø      The variant for queen breeders (full frame, with thin glass) - For the USA with delivery - $ 80.

Ø      The variant for queen breeders (half-frame, without glass) - For the USA with delivery - $ 50

Ø      The variant for queen breeders (half-frame, with thin glass) - For the USA with delivery - $ 65

 For other countries we can calculate the price and delivery price on request.

You can additionally order elements to the standard version with artificial glass 4 mm thick. :

Ø      Separate bottom

Ø      Separate body-box for Dadant frame

Ø      Separate body-box  for half-frame

Ø      Separate body-box  for Ruth frame

Ø      Separate body-box  for Langstrott frame

 

If you want to order Apivx Observational Beehive, please contact us using email      glebskij@gmail.com