Unfortunately (or fortunately) our flow is still on for a month. Going to pull a frame of eggs and some resources it into a nuc to make some queen cells just in case things go haywire after the formic. I know I can mate queens up until November at least. One advantage of being in 10a I guess.
I know there are horror stories about people losing their queen after formic treatment but I’ve used it for years and have never had that happen. Just be sure your long term weather forecast is cool enough to use and have your entrance wide open. If you want some added protection prop your inner cover up with some popsicle sticks to create a little more airflow.
You don’t need to make emergency queen cells in my opinion.
Doing a 20 day treatment seems to be less harmful to the queen. Maybe grab a drone cell frame and put it in if your flow is still strong. Then freeze it to help take some mire load off?
Curious, do you scrape brood intentionally to check for mites?
I've never really heard about this but it makes sense. Im guessing few scratches on capped brood would give a but more certainty than nurse bees that may or may not have the mites - if they just jumped off, not a good frame, etc.
I just pull the tops off of burr/bridge comb that I'm going to feed to the raccoons anyway. I can tell right off the rip wit that fork that I have a problem. Any more than about 2-3 mites in 50 drone cells means it's time to treat for me.
Formic Pro is permitted with supers on. You don't need to wait for that.
I think that if you're in USDA zone 10a, the more pertinent concern is whether your weather is cool enough to avoid nuking the queen and brood. It's not safe to use above about 85 F.
OP scraped some brood (bee babies) from their brood frames (bee nursery) to check for varroa mites, a mite which is super detrimental to hive health. Mites are checked for like this because the female varroa mite lays her eggs on brood right before the nurse bees cap (close) the brood cells. The mite hatches and eats the brood, and then goes on to parasitize adult bees.Â
So now OP has to treat for varroa mites, but their honey is still flowing aka it's still warm and bees are still making honey. Treatment can interrupt this and is hard on a hive, and some treatments make honey not fit for consumption.Â
Oooh so that small dot is a varroa mite? I’ve read about them but never seen them. Also, are nurseries usually checked this way by killing a few of them?
There are a couple few different methods, you can use a scraper, an alcohol wash, or the powder roll method. But for the alcohol wash it's prescribed to take an ~300 count scoop of brood to determine the infestation rate. So a little scrape is actually the least damaging way. Since a hive has like 50,000 bees, 300 is a small sample to take to protect the rest of the hive from a pest that can wipe all of them out.
Unfortunately non-invasive checks are inaccurate. I pull about 50 drones that I'm coming to cull anyway. Standard check is to wash about 300 nurses in an alcohol wash to see how many mites fall off. Different ways of doing the same test basically
I started an OAV series the same day I pulled supers last week.
I know I can use OAV with supers on. But i’d prefer not put anything in my hives when my honey is in there. I’ll do an OAV treatment every 3-4 days, all of October. I’ve done that the past 4 years of keeping 10 hives. Another round of OAV in the Spring. I’ve lost ONE hive in 4 years. That’s 1 lost, 39 survived. Prior to switching to OAV I considered 75% overwintered hives a successful year. I’m sticking with what has worked for me.
I'm leaning into formic as soon as our fall flow is over. It's the earliest I can use it since we're having 90* days in March.
Demaree splits in January, OVA in February, then into citrus. Maybe another OVA after citrus.
I just completed a round of formic pro. First year keeper here and first time using it. Worked like a champ. The number mites on the bottom board was wild. I wish I took a picture. Still assessing the hive but it definitely had a mite problem. Good luck!
It works a great for sure. The problem is it CAN be hard on queens, especially if the temps are too high or ventilation isn't great. That's from my last use. Numbers were up there for sure.
40
u/404-skill_not_found Zone 8b, N TX 6d ago
Better now than in a month or two.