Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DISEASE & PEST CONTROL => Topic started by: Beeboy01 on October 07, 2019, 06:30:21 pm

Title: I'm at it again
Post by: Beeboy01 on October 07, 2019, 06:30:21 pm
Well this year I'm hoping to duplicate the Varroa mite, Oxalic acid experiment where I treated my hives with oxalic and then did a daily Varroa mite drop count with graphing the results.

  This time I'm planning to treat all five of my hives every four days with a daily mite count. Not trying to prove anything, just gathering information. From last year's work it looked like six treatments would be sufficient for a decent mite knockdown.
 
  I hit my hives with their first treatment today to get the ball rolling.

  I plan to use graph paper for the results but would really like to join the 21 Century and use a graphing or spread sheet program for the information also. Does anybody have any recommendations for a decent and easy to use program which would fit my ticket?

  Thanks

Ed 
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: iddee on October 07, 2019, 07:02:11 pm
open office

https://www.openoffice.org/download/
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: Ben Framed on October 07, 2019, 10:28:20 pm
Well this year I'm hoping to duplicate the Varroa mite, Oxalic acid experiment where I treated my hives with oxalic and then did a daily Varroa mite drop count with graphing the results.

  This time I'm planning to treat all five of my hives every four days with a daily mite count. Not trying to prove anything, just gathering information. From last year's work it looked like six treatments would be sufficient for a decent mite knockdown.
 
  I hit my hives with their first treatment today to get the ball rolling.

  I plan to use graph paper for the results but would really like to join the 21 Century and use a graphing or spread sheet program for the information also. Does anybody have any recommendations for a decent and easy to use program which would fit my ticket?

  Thanks

Ed

I encourage you! Thanks
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: Beeboy01 on October 08, 2019, 11:30:58 am
Iddee, thanks for the link, couldn't find anything that was just right. Ended up finding this https://www.onlinecharttool.com/ which looks like it will work.
   I'll post the data weekly once I start the counts. Hope the rain clears up by this afternoon need to get the ball rolling.
Title: I'm at it again
Post by: TheHoneyPump on October 08, 2019, 01:25:01 pm
Awesome!   Looking forward to it. :)
If I may suggest, do an alcohol wash sample before starting the regimen.  And do another wash sample at the end of the regimen.  The daily bottom board count will reveal how fast or slow the mites drop after each OAV shot.  The beginning and end wash samples will reveal the overall effectiveness start-finish of the entire regimen. 

If you have a google account, there is an entire application suite available.  And it is all FREE.   Look into Google Docs as a simple and cross platform solution for the basics.
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: Beeboy01 on October 08, 2019, 03:44:27 pm
HP, I was thinking about a alcohol wash also but hate killing the bees no matter how good my intentions are. I know that I need to work on developing a correlation between the oxalic acid mite drop count and a more universally accepted count method like an alcohol wash. It's a rabbit hole I'm just not ready to go down yet.
  My first application yesterday was in a steady rain which might give some skewed numbers to start with.
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: Beeboy01 on October 08, 2019, 03:51:30 pm
Here's the data from last year when I treated hive #3 transferred over to the graph program. Beats the heck out of paper and pencil ;)

 
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: BeeMaster2 on October 09, 2019, 12:54:26 am
That does look good but I?m really surprised how strong the mites kept coming back until you were doing treatments every other day.
Jim Altmiller
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: Michael Bush on October 09, 2019, 08:55:38 am
A sugar shake done correctly is just as useful as an alcohol wash and doesn't kill bees.  An alcohol wash if you aren't careful, you could get the queen...

Put them in powdered sugar.  Shake them well and let them set for a few minutes and give them another shake.  Dump the sugar in some water (with the bees strained out by #8 hardware coth) and you can count the mites floating on the surface of the water.
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: Ben Framed on October 09, 2019, 12:53:56 pm
That does look good but I?m really surprised how strong the mites kept coming back until you were doing treatments every other day.
Jim Altmiller

Jim, Could the possible answer be that this hive was robbing an infested nearby hive, perhaps a feral hive or a nearby hive on the verge of collapse because of mites, and the hitchhiking mites were making there way to there new home? This described situation, could supply a steady flow of mites to this hive?
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: Beeboy01 on October 10, 2019, 04:17:37 pm
Ben,I don't think the hive was robbing out one that was failing in the area, non of the other hives in the yard had such a heavy mite load. If there was robbing going on I would expect to see a heavy mite population in all the hives in the yard.
   My take on it is that #3 hive had such a heavy infestation that the matriarchal mite population wasn't getting knocked down till I went to a four day treatment regime. One thing that I didn't include on the graph was a large brood die off near the end of the 4 day treatment period. My notes showed that most of the dead brood out in front of the hive had deformed wings. 
    I'm not saying that a robbing situation with a mite bomb hive couldn't happen, hive #3 would of been a perfect example of it if the hive had failed. Just in this instance the hive came into my yard in the spring as a nuc with a heavy mite load, I didn't treat and ended up with the classic heavy mite infestation by the end of the year. Surprisingly hive #3 survived despite all that happened to it and was a good producer this year.

So far this year's count has been iffy because of the heavy rain I'm getting over the last few days. Most of the mite drop counts have been below 50 with some counts under 20 mites in 24 hours. I did the second set of treatments today and will keep up with the daily mite drop counts. 
  More to come ;)
 
Title: I'm at it again
Post by: TheHoneyPump on October 10, 2019, 07:19:37 pm
Is the current treating and counts on the same hive as last year or different hive, #3. ?
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: BeeMaster2 on October 11, 2019, 12:23:18 am
That does look good but I?m really surprised how strong the mites kept coming back until you were doing treatments every other day.
Jim Altmiller
Jim, Could the possible answer be that this hive was robbing an infested nearby hive, perhaps a feral hive or a nearby hive on the verge of collapse because of mites, and the hitchhiking mites were making there way to there new home? This described situation, could supply a steady flow of mites to this hive?
That is possible. Sone hives are more prone to Robbing than others.
Jim Altmiller
Title: Re: I'm at it again
Post by: Beeboy01 on October 11, 2019, 12:34:16 pm
HP, so far the counts are significantly lower this year for hive #3 and for all the other hives. #3 only showed a 24 hour mite drop of 14 after the first treatment  with the highest being #2 at 38 mites, it's almost a reduction by a factor of ten.

  My last set of treatments was back in February when I treated all the hives with four treatments four days apart. I would of expected to see a much larger mite load in all the hives by now so I'm a bit puzzled by the low counts.
   
  Don't know if the rainy weather during the initial treatment period had any effect on the oxalic acid, it is hygroscopic and could of picked up some moisture which would affect how it would re crystallize in the hive.

Hoping to get a good count this afternoon, the weather has finally cleared.