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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #3498  by Alfred
 11 Jun 2019, 13:28
I have the trays still under the mesh,not sure I should, but given the weather I can't see it's doing much harm.
I had a peek at them yesterday.
As far as wildlife goes I saw on one tray a tiny spider but other than that nothing,no mites, and that's over 10 days so the total load surely isn't too high?
What was there in huge amounts was wax particles and pollen.
It seems such a waste of their efforts to have it drop it through the mesh-especially for the smaller colony.
Is it feasable to somehow feed it back?
 #3501  by NigelP
 11 Jun 2019, 15:53
Alfred wrote:
11 Jun 2019, 13:28
er but other than that nothing,no mites, and that's over 10 days so the total load surely isn't too high?
Don't rely on drop counts as means of estimating your current varroa levels. You may have ants eating the varroa as they fall, varroa are quite fast movers and may simply walk off the inspoection tray or many varrroa may be currently breeding even more varroa inside cells and so not falling.
Dust with icing suga or do a sugar or alcohol roll wash, or quick vape with OA and then see what drops....
 #3506  by NigelP
 11 Jun 2019, 17:45
As long as you don't mind getting wet.... ;)
Why the rush?
 #3509  by Patrick
 11 Jun 2019, 20:14
I wouldn’t dust with icing sugar in the rain, the bees may end up a sticky mess !

Not entirely a joke, many years ago I sprayed some bees with a weak sugar solution as per book recommendation. No solution strength was advised but a few sprays later they were a sticky mess. Never used anything apart from water since.
 #3513  by Alfred
 11 Jun 2019, 22:02
NigelP wrote:
11 Jun 2019, 17:45
As long as you don't mind getting wet.... ;)
Why the rush?
I'd like to get more proactive with the Ipm
I've got drone trapping frames going but that's all.
No mites in the larvae.Where are they hiding?
I want to avoid chemicals as long as possible but keep on top of things.
If that's possible...
 #3515  by AdamD
 12 Jun 2019, 09:03
I leave my trays out winter and summer, unless I am monitoring, so if mites fall, they fall to the ground.
 #3519  by NigelP
 12 Jun 2019, 14:50
Alfred wrote:
11 Jun 2019, 22:02
I've got drone trapping frames going but that's all.
No mites in the larvae.Where are they hiding?
I've given up on drone trapping as a viable means of reducing varroa numbers.
I actually found a varroa mite on a drone this year after intensive searching. I had a queen got into the supers and laid drones in all the drone comb so I destroyed and searched....1 obvious mite in 100's of drones.
Very similar to previous attempts with super frame in brood box and bees drawing drone comb beneath...not a damn varroa in sight...
Tried this for a few years and then decided to believe the evidence of my own eyes and stopped using it. Waste of resources for the bees and drones.
 #3523  by Patrick
 12 Jun 2019, 17:38
Seconded, Nigel.

The theory of drone trapping is good but I never saw the pupa dotted with varroa I expected to see. I either had very low mite numbers or it didn’t work, but in either case it seemed unnecessary extra work.
 #3528  by NigelP
 12 Jun 2019, 21:25
Always good to have ones observations confirmed independantly Patrick.
It's still taught as a part of IPM though.....