Pics of a Dec. dead out: discussion open??

[Ben Framed]

Mr Stinger, if you like it that much I am going to check it out also!!
Phillip

[minz]

I love Randy Oliver, he has several articles on Nosema:
http://scientificbeekeeping.com/sick-bees-part-15-an-improved-method-for-nosema-sampling/
I was doing my annual OAD today and had my usual losses of 1 of 10 from my home yard and my Estacada yard was practically wiped out (one hive remaining). That yard generally winters pretty well and I have to admit I was confused.
Nice to come to BeeMaster and talk bees rather than presidents!!!!!!

[Ben Framed]

minz.  "my Estacada yard was practically wiped out (one hive remaining)."

Wow minz that is really a tough situation. Do you keep many hives there? Have you found the culprit,  nosema, mite, something else? Sorry about your losses. As far as the presidents go, there is not a lot that the common man can do but try to earnestly seek the truth, sort out the truth, be informed, and vote your values. We can leave the politics at the coffee house.  Back to the bees, Hang tough, make splits in the spring from your survivors, and do your best to find what the problem, or problems were  this time, and strive for better results the next go round.
Phillip

[Live Oak]

Liveoak, I adore the your idea of the Mighty Mite Killer (thermal treatment).  New to me, thank you Sir.

Can you recommend or anyone else? I looked at the web site and demo and I am impressed.
Blessings

If you have Fake Book access, below is a link to the Mighty Mite Thermal Treatment Users Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/275791919813444/?ref=bookmarks

There are many members there posting their questions and results. 

[Live Oak]

I posted this video in another thread but I would again remind anyone who has not watched the entire video to please do so.  Reproductive varrao mites are like a metastatic cancer.  If you do not take effective measure to wipe them out, even if you kill nearly all of the phoretic mites, the reproductive mites will again overtake the hive in short order unless you continually and frequently apply treatments to knock down the phoretic mites to keep their numbers small.  Killing the reproductive mites protects the hive for MUCH longer especially when combined with other excellent phoretic mite treatments such as OAV or applying Apivar in early Fall/late Summer. 

I personally prefer not to use any chemicals IF possible but keep an eye on mite counts and apply chemical/OAV treatments as necessary. 

This is a bit of a lengthy video but worth EVERY minute of your time in my opinion if you have not already viewed the entire video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK2Xi0ST4rA&feature=youtu.be

It will turn EVERYTHING your thought you knew about varroa mites on its head. 

[van from Arkansas]

Live Oak, I listen to the video, all 1.3 hour.  Excellent, just an excellent video.  Thank you for posting as I am not a member of Facebook so I could not look at previous suggested Facebook vid.  YouTube, yes, Facebook no.  So much useful information and very well presented by Dr. Ramsey.

I have studied Dr. Ramsey work prior, the man in a walking phenomenon to me.
At the suggestion of Dr. Samuel Ramsey I will give strong consideration to the use of amitraz.  Currently I have never used a mfg. miticide and have relied on the organic acid, oxalic acid for treatment of varroa.

However as discussed previously, there is an error in my treatment with OA vapor as the pics clearly shows varroa infestation which most likely caused the death of the hive.

Blessings

[beepro]

We're under the assumption that in Dec. or when it gets colder the queen will stop laying during the
winter month.  In reality the queens continue to lay in small patches of broods.   The mites that you did not
get with the recent OAV will continue to reinfect the new small patches of cap broods.  That is why if only 10 mites
that survive during the winter months they can multiply exponentially during the early build up.  This will lead to a
hive crashed situation depending on how aggressive the mites are and the diseases they carry.   

It doesn't matter whether or not in the snow or warm bee climate, they will continue to infect the broods because of
these small patches of cap broods.   In a dwindling winter hive the remaining free running mites can completely crash a
hive.  This is exactly what happened to one of my mite cap brood frames removal nuc hive.  Luckily they did not crash because of
another strong hive saving it with donated bees and cap broods.  I give them plenty of food now -- honey syrup, patty subs and sugar bricks are all on.

[van from Arkansas]

Beepro: can multiply exponentially

Agreed with all you text.  I am hoping for broodless with the previous cold weather.  Today I started feeding sub pollen after OAV treatment.  The bees were all over the pollen, that means brood.  Hopefully brood is just starting due to past 2-3 warm days.  Normal in this area is January for brood.  Not saying there is absolutely no brood in December, but saying not much brood to none, I hope.

Wishing 2019 is a great year for you Beepro, as is to all.
Blessings

[Ben Framed]

I posted this video in another thread but I would again remind anyone who has not watched the entire video to please do so.  Reproductive varrao mites are like a metastatic cancer.  If you do not take effective measure to wipe them out, even if you kill nearly all of the phoretic mites, the reproductive mites will again overtake the hive in short order unless you continually and frequently apply treatments to knock down the phoretic mites to keep their numbers small.  Killing the reproductive mites protects the hive for MUCH longer especially when combined with other excellent phoretic mite treatments such as OAV or applying Apivar in early Fall/late Summer. 

I personally prefer not to use any chemicals IF possible but keep an eye on mite counts and apply chemical/OAV treatments as necessary. 

This is a bit of a lengthy video but worth EVERY minute of your time in my opinion if you have not already viewed the entire video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK2Xi0ST4rA&feature=youtu.be

It will turn EVERYTHING your thought you knew about varroa mites on its head.

I agree with Stinger, this is an excellent video. In fact I posted it yesterday Dec 21,  under the Disease and Pest Control heading under the topic of Mobile app for beekeepers - Varroa Detection.. I have watched the video more than once. I gave the credit of my watching the video to you.  Again thank you for posting this video as Im sure, whoever spends the time watching it will be glad they did!  Also Mr Claude, TheHoneyPump, posted a very very good detailed article here, with pictures, describing what to look for with the varroa mite. It too is well worth investigating and one to print and save for future reference.

Thanks,

[Acebird]

Open for discussions.

What I see is a hand full of starving bees.  No where near enough to make it through winter.  Frase does not get cleaned up in a colony so small because they can't raise brood.  This colony was in deep do do way before December.  I would not come to any conclusions for a hive like this that could be used for managing an apiary.

[van from Arkansas]

Yes Sir, Ace, Agreed.  This hive struggled since orgin.  Hive was in full sun all summer, all other hives had shade.  This hive never did have a full crop of bees.  So many factors;

Small population?
Full sun?
Varroa even after 3-4 treatments? I realize mites in capped brood are safe.
Weak queen?

The upper deep had 8.5 frames of honey, bottom deep void except for a few bees.
Blessings

[TheHoneyPump]

Yes Sir, Ace, Agreed.  This hive struggled since orgin.  Hive was in full sun all summer, all other hives had shade.  This hive never did have a full crop of bees.  So many factors;

Small population?
Full sun?
Varroa even after 3-4 treatments? I realize mites in capped brood are safe.
Weak queen?

The upper deep had 8.5 frames of honey, bottom deep void except for a few bees.
Blessings

Typical/Probable signs of nosema ceranae.

[Ben Framed]

Yes Sir, Ace, Agreed.  This hive struggled since orgin.  Hive was in full sun all summer, all other hives had shade.  This hive never did have a full crop of bees.  So many factors;

Small population?
Full sun?
Varroa even after 3-4 treatments? I realize mites in capped brood are safe.
Weak queen?

The upper deep had 8.5 frames of honey, bottom deep void except for a few bees.
Blessings

Typical/Probable signs of nosema ceranae.

Mr Claude, I know that you see something that has sparked your interest and directing you to nosema ceranae. I am eager to learn! Please educate me Sir!   
Thanks, Phillip

[TheHoneyPump]

PM sent

[Ben Framed]

PM sent

Got it, thanks !

[beepro]

There is another probability that you might not of consider yet.  During the long Autumn or winter, even with good
flying weather, the bee genetics play a big role in keeping the hive strong.

We have good flying weather all year long so far.  Dec. is getting colder down to the 30s and 40s at night.  Day temp will
be in the upper 50s.   Still, some of my hives will be depleted of worker bees while some are booming hives.   This is confusing to
me as to why some hives' workers cannot stay in the hive.    Then I bought some German-Italians origin bees to try.  These are not the
mutt bees but uniform in color and appearance. 

These bees will stay in the hives building up a healthy 3-4 frames of bees in a 5 frame nuc box.   With these healthy looking winter
bees, I can drop some bee frames into a dwindling hive with only a handful of bees left just like your hive situation.  Now my dwindling hive is
booming again and the workers also stay put.

The queen continues to lay in small patches without the mites to interfere.  My last hive inspection on last weekend had zero free running mite.  The
cap brood frames with the attaching bees on, I put it back into the donor German-Italians hive.   This will remove all mites from the dwindling hive for
now.  Also, I only saw one free running mite in the donor hive but will keep an eye on it because the queen is still laying up to 4 frames of cap broods now. 

Somehow the German-Italians bees are different from the regular mutted open mated Italians hives.  Different bee genetics will overwinter differently just like the carnis vs the Italians.    And Germany is a cold snowing country too!

[blackforest beekeeper]

what`s a "german" bee??? or german-italian, for that matter?

In Germany, there are more or less Carnicas, Buckfast and some very few dark ones, and probably none of them are pure... (is my opinion).
I myself have a "land-race", I never bought or used any pure-bred-stock.

[blackforest beekeeper]

I posted this video in another thread but I would again remind anyone who has not watched the entire video to please do so.  Reproductive varrao mites are like a metastatic cancer.  If you do not take effective measure to wipe them out, even if you kill nearly all of the phoretic mites, the reproductive mites will again overtake the hive in short order unless you continually and frequently apply treatments to knock down the phoretic mites to keep their numbers small.  Killing the reproductive mites protects the hive for MUCH longer especially when combined with other excellent phoretic mite treatments such as OAV or applying Apivar in early Fall/late Summer. 

I personally prefer not to use any chemicals IF possible but keep an eye on mite counts and apply chemical/OAV treatments as necessary. 

This is a bit of a lengthy video but worth EVERY minute of your time in my opinion if you have not already viewed the entire video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK2Xi0ST4rA&feature=youtu.be

It will turn EVERYTHING your thought you knew about varroa mites on its head.

I am glad I found the time to watch this presentation. It seems this young researcher has his stuff together and for keeping bees it would be good to know how the mite feeds. he researched just this.

he also mentioned that 60% of his audiences in the US do not treat for varroa, as they never see them. Now.... probably the more curious DO go to sientific talks. How many percent of beekeepers in the US DO therefor NOT treat? No wonder the losses are said to be enourmous. and how well are losses documented? most won`?t even tell anybody....

[SiWolKe]

You can see it here.

https://beeinformed.org/results/honey-bee-colony-losses-2017-2018-preliminary-results/

It?s a very low number of beekeepers who took part and nothing was said if those treated or not.

And they mention other factors like pesticides and such which could be the reason in the german translation:

<<<W?hrend des gesamten Erhebungszeitraums vom 1. April 2017 bis zum 1. April 2018 verloren die Imker sogar sch?tzungsweise 40 % ihrer Bienenv?lker. Als Ursachen f?r dieses Honigbienensterben gelten die Produktionsweisen der Landwirtschaft mit ihren Auswirkungen Nahrungsarmut und Pestizide sowie Bienenparasiten, an erster Stelle die Varroamilbe.>>>

[Ben Framed]

@  blackforest beekeeper 
Yes, I know how you feel by the enlightenment of this video, I was also was glad I took the time to watch it! Very Educational to say the least!

@ SiWolke, 
 From the artical posted by SiWolke referring to the USA
" Similar to previous years, backyard beekeepers lost more colonies in winter (46.3%) compared to those lost by sideline (38.0%) and commercial (26.4%) beekeepers. Backyard, sideline, and commercial beekeepers are defined as those managing 50 or fewer colonies, 51 ? 500 colonies, and 501 or more colonies, respectively."
 

Thanks SiWolke,
These stats are alarming. Beeboy01 posted a topic on the varroa a month or so ago and some very interesting points were brought by some knowledgeable folks here including our Blackforrest beekeeper. you might want to look it up and< I think you will find this interesting. If you can't find it let me know and I will find it for you. Headed out not and simply don't have the time at hand at the moment to look it up.   
 
What are the stats in Germany? What about other countries through out Europe where the varroa has invaded?  Such as England, France, etc. But not only Europe; The World as a whole?
Thanks





Edit: Explanation below....


Phillip