BBKA Forum

It’s that time of year again when most beekeepers treat their bees for varroa to ensure their bees being raised now are as healthy as possible going into winter.

With quite a few options available as treatments what are others thinking of using, what is popular in your area or indeed are you considering not treating at all?

I am usually treating by now. However I still have honey to get off the hives. I did treat a few nucs with thymol (Apiguard or Apilife Var) which resulted in robbing activity. (!) One has failed as a result; the others were able to resist. There appears to be no forage available at all at the moment so bees are out for whatever they can get.

I have one on Apilife var and one on Apilguard. I know that the Apilife has higher Thymol content and seems to be stronger as bees are bearding were as the one on Apiguard doesn't seem to be as effected. Mites dropped are all dead on Apilife but a lot still moving on the Apiguard, first week so maybe the Apiguard takes longer to kick in.

Hoooooraaaay!!!
The forum is back wher it belongs

Wasn't able to log on with old details so just logged on from a fresh again, so now can keep up with the gos again.


I still have honey to remove next week and some of my colonies are very strong , treatment for me is 3 consecutive fumings with my vapouriser 6 days apart which will commence later next week or beginning of following week.

I have just placed the third serving of Apilife VAR to my bees. I place it every Saturday for four weeks.
What happens the Apilife Var product? Does it just disintegrate into pure vapour? Or, do the bees chew it, and regurgitate it outsider the hives as part of their cleaning process?
I have highlighted in yellow, the remains of Apilife Var after 7 days in the hive.

Far too late and too cold for any of the thymol based treatments to work in North Yorkshire at the moment. Night time temps are down to 3-4C.
Vaping and removing sticky residues from apibioxal. I use a sublimox, and similar to Nealh I do 4 vapes at 5 day (approx) intervals. Very effective and has no noticeable effects on bees or queens laying rate. I would hate to be using anything that disrupted them at this time of the year.
In my furthest out apiary I am using apivar strips to save me a time traveling and vaping. Again they are very effective with no side effects on queens or bees.
Some hives have dropped 100's some have dropped very few 48 hrs post vaping.
No hives where dropping significant amounts of varroa as assessed by the largely unreliable drop counts onto sticky boards recommended methods.

I would never recommend not treating.

I use MAQS. It can be used this time of year and with honey on. However I am looking at buying a sublimox for future use.

Good to see you back Chris.

NigelP wrote: ↑

23 Sep 2018, 18:43

Good to see you back Chris.

You too Nigel. I hope you, yours and the your bees are in fine health and have had a most rewarding season. Ive missed reading and posting on this board.

Yes Chris, all is well, another record-breaking honey harvest despite the slow start. This summers was just ideal for bees and showed what they are capable of given an extended spell of good weather and available forage.