I was considering another varroa treatment option and wanted to get some advice…
I want to do a combined brood break and timed oxalic treatment.
I don’t have space or equipment to make another split so I was wondering if anyone sees a problem with jailing the queen in a queen clip (workers can pass through the tines) for 14 days, releasing her and then doing a vaporization treatment 7-8 days later.
Is there any detriment to jailing the queen for those 2 weeks? Has anyone used a clip or should I consider making a queen jail frame or using a push-in cage? My understanding is that the bees are pretty good at springing the queens from the push-in cages.
Any other ideas for how to accomplish this? Or, is it easier to just do several successive vaporization treatments? My problem with the successive treatments is that without some sort of brood break there are always going to be quite a large number of mites in the capped brood.
It is too long for such a confined space. Queen will not recover productivity and will be superseded.
If you don’t have equipment at all, you may simply kill the queen and let them make a new one. It will give you a break. Treat the whole lot when queen hatches.
My question is, how does fit with the whole scheme of things. Where are you in relation to the main flow? I mean, is it worth doing the break now?
Main flow is about over and we’ll be in a dearth or relative dearth until September.
Maybe if I can find an empty box I can make a split with all the capped brood and then recombine after all that brood is hatched but before they have a new queen, if they are even able to make one.
I could limit it to two more effective oxalic treatments that way.
Ah, this is a completely different level of not having equipment!
In this case, how about jailing the varroa instead of the queen? It is not necessary to have an incubator in form of a separate hive. If a colony is strong, the incubator can be created in the same hive. Move brood in the top box and add a small number of bees, 200-300 per frame. Provide box with food and water. Between the top and bottom boxes put a sheet of fine mesh or fabric that does not allow mites to pass but allows air circulation. If the top box has a separate entrance, block it. Treat the brood when it hatches. Recombine.
By the way, all these split-incubator methods are efficient at low levels of infestation.
