Click here to view an article on the importance of managing varroa mites throughout the year.
Below is an example varroa management plan that we expect will lead to effective varroa control in 2021 where we live in the southern Adirondack region. Remember, this is only an example plan and you need to make sure any plan you develop fits your area and your bees. We've built our plan around holidays to make it easier to remember key varroa-control dates. (If you don't want to be thinking about mites on July 4th or on Christmas, you could adjust the dates to be a week earlier or a week later.)
Springtime
We are limited in our spring treatments because we are leaving winter behind and we will soon be collecting the year's first honey. Many treatments must be applied over a lot of time and could interrupt our other beekeeping plans. For example, Apivar needs 42 to 56 days in the hive, and then 14 additional days after removal before honey can be collected. If you want to add honey supers on April 15th, you need to take Apivar out by April 1st, which means the strips need to go in in the first two weeks of February! That tends to be an inconvenient time for bee work if you live in an area that receives winter snow.
At Betterbee, we test for mites in the early spring, but we work hard to control the mites in fall and winter so that our bees come into spring with low mite counts that don't require treatment. Starting in spring, each colony will have a screened bottom board installed, and we will use it to periodically assess mite levels throughout the year, in between the more precise mite tests on the schedule below.
Flag Day (June 14)
Test all hives, or a sample of hives in each yard if you have too many to test, and then treat the entire yard if they yield more than 3 mites per 100 bees in the alcohol wash or sugar shake tests. Treatment at this time of year will be Formic Pro (2 pads per hive) if mite counts are over the threshold.
Independence Day (July 4)
Repeat the June plan. If treatment is required, we have to find a stretch of days that will be under the maximum temperature on the Formic Pro package to treat so we don't harm our bees. If the temperature is too high, we must use something other than Formic Pro!
First week of August
Hey, thanks for taking such good care of us!
Repeat June plan again, still being mindful of the maximum temperature for Formic Pro if any treatments are needed.
Labor Day (First week of September)
We've removed and harvested our summer honey crop now. To give us a sense of the mite levels in our hives we will monitor a few using the alcohol wash or sugar roll, but we expect to treat all colonies regardless of how many mites we count. If we don’t have time to monitor mite levels, we will default to treating every hive. Apivar strips are installed (1 strip per 5 frames of bees - 4 strips total for most hives). These strips will be removed in 8 weeks (first week of November).
First week of November
Test mite numbers again to make sure we are low. If not, treat with oxalic acid vaporization.
Thanksgiving
Oxalic acid vaporization.
Christmas
Oxalic acid vaporization. These late-season treatments are important to clean up any mites your bees picked up in the fall while robbing honey from weak or dying untreated hives nearby.
