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.