Planning for the winter ahead here in New Zealand and we are considering leaving our supers on and well stocked to give the hives a solid food base so they winter well and come into spring strong.
I just don’t know what to do when we put in Carroa treatment as I have been taught (and followed the advice) that you can not have supers on when treating for varroa.
Any tips/advice would be appreciated.
It will depend what type of varroa treatment you are using. Oxalic and formic acid can be used with supers in place, but many other treatments require removal of the supers. Also what kind of super are you using? I would be hesitant to expose a Flow super to anything other than oxalic or formic acids, which occur naturally in the environment anyway.
If you can tell us the name of the treatment, maybe somebody will have experience of using it over winter. Personally I do my last treatment in late autumn, then leave the hives over winter with no treatment until spring.
As Dawn said, it depends on which treatment you will use. But there is a way through the restrictions of treatment labels regarding super on or super off.
The super referred to in the label are for supers used for honey for human consumption. You can have a box of frames that are strictly for bees only. Mark or colour them so you don’t mistake them for “human” supers. I use deeps for everything except bee supers which are ideals. Now you have way to treat while there’s a flow on and leave them with winter stores.
Never leave the bee super on when you have a human super on. Bees move honey between supers, so don’t give them the opportunity to move contaminated honey from the bee super to the human super.
You are fortunate in NZ that you have the “Own Use Exemption “ clause in your legislation. You can use any of the organic treatment options on your own bees almost without restriction. Check out www.scientificbeekeeping.com for research based organic treatment doses, delivery methods and strategies.
Mike