Відео

I’m excited to be picking up my first Hive IQ triple box bundle next week to house a Nuc I’ve had for a month now that is full to the brim. I’ll have to consider a second one now because of a swarm I picked up the other day. Beekeeping never stands still

I do NOT use pesticides….

Hi Glen, Just reinforcing your remark about beekeepers perhaps blaming SHB rather than Varroa. First detected Varroa (Sydney Northen Beaches) in April, and have been monitoring accumulated weekly mite fall ever since. Reached alcohol wash test threshold in May, treated w Bayvarol, (very effective) reached threshold again in August, treated with FormicPro (very effective, including inside capped cell kills, and induced a brood break), but needed to treat yet again in early December - using a suitable temperature forecast, again with FormicPro. SHB has been endemic here since ~2004, but I've never experienced anything like the onslaught of SHB that has occurred this Spring/early Summer. Other beekeepers in this area reported similar massive adult beetle attacks, but with many SHB being notably smaller than usual. My suspicion is that in response to Varroa, large numbers feral and unmanaged colonies are failing/absconding, leaving stores to be slimed out by SHB, which is blamed for suddenly ruined hives, rather than the Varroa which caused it. Hopefully this is a passing phase - I gather central coast area where hives were euthanised and ferrals really were baited by DPI , are not experiencing significant SHB this season.

Hi Glen , thanks for your calm and informative approach to the Verroa mite problem. Going off your experience, this is a great help for all of us who will are inline for the pest in the near future. Keep up the good work. Cheers and Merry Christmas.

Thanks for sharing Glen. I imagine that this is somewhat of a shock. I agree with your view on not repeating the exercise, personally I don’t see the point and frankly I believe it would be counterproductive moving forward. I am sure that there will be more challenging times ahead and having some capital in support from others will become more important. Cheers Mate 🐝

When I first counted 666 mites I thought the devil had arrived, and it was a record. I've counted several with 12 to 1500 since. To get a reasonably accurate count, you can count a representative column (usually about a 1/3 from the edge) and multiply it by the number of columns. Also, when you get your first bag of varoxan, keep the bag. It's "refillable" 😉.

WOW .... thats a lot of mites in 24 hours, the product is working thats for sure... and as Dave Sweeney says, we are lucky to be on the back of the rest of the world, and I'm hoping here in Western Australia, it'll be even further away, but I don't hold out much hope, someone will bring it in .... but thankyou Glenn , for your video's , Ideas, putting yourself out there and doing the hard work, it really is appreciated 👌and I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and look forward to a fantastic 2025....cheers Wilson

Why do you have old beef splitting axes ?

Thats scary to hear that number isn't it. Cheers

glen thats a pretty good result , with only 14 hives here on the property i can check my surveillance mats every day ,And i collect all the data like you for my own information moving forward , the numbers do go up and down thru the treatments as brood emerges . Everyone trying and treating one way or another will get thru it together . thank you for what you do for us and sharing the experience . Cheers Dave and merry xmas

enjoy your videos and so interesting to see how folks in other places deal with the same issues. I am in the US (North Carolina) and switched over to HiveIQ this past spring. One thing I have been thinking about and cannot find much information on mite treatments vs temperature in these insulated hives. I have noticed over the summer here that we routinely get into temps above treatment guidelines right when we need to treat. But also have seen bees in the insulated hives not fanning in the summer and not clustering at fall lower temps than wooden hives. This is leading me to think that we that use insulated hives might be able to treat outside the high and low temps guidelines as the products were tested on wooden hives. I usually do Apiguard in August here (hot) but only use 1/3 doses. Starting to wonder if we can treat at full strength as the hives do not get as hot. Haven't really seen much on this yet.

How concerned are you that it is going to get moved up into the honey supers?

Thorough and professional. That's how these battles are won. Thank you. Cheers...

What makes you think the wild population of bees have dropped. That would be very interesting. Overseas research seems to indicate mite resistance is gaining from wild hives being naturally selected re death rates due to mites

Gday from Canada, your high mite count could be from drift as it's in the center of all the hives. Not a for sure but a possability. Good luck with the treatment.

All the best for Christmas and New Year mate. Thanks for sharing your journey the videos are much appreciated. 🐝🐝

Another great video, I pulled my Bayvarol strips out today after having them in for 6 weeks . A hive that had mite count of 17/300 now has 0.

We have treated our brood with the Varroa controller and then put Bayvarol strips in the hive

another great message on random mite test numbers , there is no rhyme or reason to it . Ill be interested in your sticky mat results on the 30 mite hive , i used api-guard on a 28 count and the first day drop was 489 and at the end of the treatment wash was 3 mite , we removed a bayvarol treatment last week that showed a 3 mite result too

Thanks again for sharing your videos. Just a question: So does the Bayvarol not build up in the wax in your honey supers? Does it only affect the wax in the brood box? I Hope you and your family have a lovely Christmas and new year :)

Love your videos. It's a real pleasure to get videos made by someone who actually knows a great deal about bees. I live near Maitland and very early on had my two hives destroyed. I purchased replacement hives and placed them at my son's house near Blaxland in the Blue Mountains. Unfortunately, they were in a cool shady spot and didn't do well, requiring frequent feeding. When the eradication effort was over, I could then bring my hives back to Maitland, unfortunately only one hive survived to bring home. I tested the hive prior to moving with nil mites, after two months I retested and was astonished to find 80 mites. A Formic Pro treatment in August dropped numbers only to 25, a second treatment with Formic Pro in early September dropped numbers to 1 mite, but killed the queen. A month later I had two hives and one hive tested at 1 mite and the other at 32 mites. I removed all drones from the brood frames of the problem hive and treated both hives twice 10 days apart with oxalic/glycerine trickle and then two weeks later with cardboard strips saturated with oxalic acid and glycerine (using Randy Oliver's methods). For the last two months both hives have only tested at 1 mite. The only reason I can see for the two extremely high mite infestations is my bees raiding out a dying feral hive both times. While mites are an ongoing issue, I am getting great harvests of honey, as the Hunter still has all the original nectar sources, but very low bee numbers. Low bee numbers are very obvious with bees in gardens in the Hunter still being quite sparse.

Glen, thanks for sharing your learning curve. We are commercial apiarists in south australia and feel next almond pollination event (2025) will result in mites. We would love to have extended oxalic strips in our hives (700) while on the almonds as a first line defense against large numbers invading the hives. I find it annoying in the least, that currently, it is legally impossible because of some subjective issues concerning OHS. Given our NZ counterparts have not endured major problems with its application, and given the residual buildup and long term resistance problems with Bayvarol , the slow moving approval process to suitable organic solutions seems to me to be utter stupidity. But then maybe I'm just a small business employing 2 young people what would I know? Thanks again, send some rain... Mark

Glen also seems like youve got some really calm bees. They seem to pay you no attention at all, just keep doing their jobs!! Of course a lot of that is how calmly and methodically you handle the frames also!! Great job!! It’s crazy we watch some people on YT and they take a frame out sling it around and then “clunk” just drop it back in the box!!😂😂😂and wonder why their bees are so pissy!! 🤦‍♀️

That looks awesome Glen!! We have a Black Gum tree that looks similar to that! Has awesome nectar. We also live in a large swamp area. We have several great nectar producers including the Tupelo which is a very prized and awesome very light colored great tasting honey! My husband and I always knew we loved this place ( he was born and raised on our 200acres of farm land) but then we got bees and are really appreciative of all the native nectar and pollen producers!

Dear Glen, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year , thanks for all your informative videos, cheers Keith 😉

I just did a test at one of my sites, and had one count of 14 but the hives around it were all low at 0s, 2s, and 3s. Good time for the video mate. I'll be using Bayvarol too.

Another really useful video. Thank you.

Could you let me know where you got your black plastic from (Bunnings?) and what type/thickness of plastic? I have HiveIQ's and noticed the bees really like propolising the lid.

great demo yet again glen , one question tho . are you going to rotate the frames back thru a super to draw them out again or wont there be time for that ,but i guess if they start storing nectar that screws the process . just thinking out loud on applying the method here really ,

Glen just ordered one of your mite testing jars. My question is what are you using in the jar to count the dead mites? I heard you can use washing liquid. David. KD Kurabees

At the recent Canberra DPI day seminar on varroa (good value despite undue emphasis IMO on synthetic pesticide control measures and other topics) I asked this same question and think Glenn's solution is much better than the DPI expert's answer, which was to just scratch off the wax and brood and start again with clean plastic foundation, which obviously entails reduction in stored honey and significantly more work for the bees drawing out the new comb. Another idea that might be worth trying is to use an old manual reversible tangential extractor to expel the drone remains, untried but if someone with access to an older tangential extractor could trial and report back that would be much appreciated.🙂

When you remove the drone comb, what do you replace it with? More drone comb or regular foundation? How often are you putting the drone comb in?

Thanks for sharing, great tips!

Just a great video... so much to learn and think about if you are serious about dealing with varroa .... thanks for the great video

I am really enjoying your videos. Was wondering, when you take off your honey supers do you use escape boards before removal or a blower to get the bees off the frames?

another great demo Glen , I've not bought drone comb yet but I'm getting closer so i have them to draw out in our next flow . seeing the 15 come out of the frame of the hive you didn't test should be an eye opener for some people . just a heads up for your viewers ive had a mite count of 3 turn into 30 in 3 weeks , mite drop after 1 day of treatment was 489 mites , its the ones you don't see is the problem . Excillant closing message too

Well done, I was wondering if those frames work

With freezing first, then doing a simple visible count could be efficient skipping the wash and then you could feed the waste to the chickens or other birds. True a mite wash gives a more detailed count but as long as you have a fair estimate you can still plan treatment and trapping methods. A lot are doing OA treatments now too and I wonder if an OA treatment could be combined with the SHB traps in the oil for slow release between various shock treatments.

I think swarms are definitely one of the, if not the number one thing I love about taking care of bees!! There is just something so magical about the leaving, and the march that I could watch over and over again!!💕Been missing the videos Glen but we know you’re swamped now and those are bottom of the list of things to do!! Hope your beekeeping year has started off awesome!

Thanks for sharing this Glen! Great demonstration video, very instructive.

Drone trapping is certainly effective. I wonder, if it catches on, if quality of queen mating will be impacted.

Thanks Glenn. We’re all learning a lot from your videos. I’m seeing a lot less drone brood in my hives now than I was a month ago

I am watching with interest. Thanks .

Thanks Glenn good practical stuff and providing positive results. I have also been working on the green drone brood frames in the super. I did find that if I painted some additional wax on the frames they were better drawn out by the bees. Considering putting a green drone in a frame cage with the Queen to force a brood break in the future. This should clear varroa or drastically reduce varroa numbers moving forward. A local mentor of mine is also working on this mechanical method but not tested as such yet. Thanks again for your video. 👍🐝

Great video,certainly better than just relying on alcohol washes alone

Glenn, could i also recommend Randy Oliver (USA) to you. His site is good. Link below to one of his chats. Good luck for the future.

ua-cam.com/video/WsW-3twSo6E/v-deo.htmlsi=18iph35wfNFGGZEp

Tank you so much For the information you provide Greetings from Turkey 👍

Hi Glen, great video once again. Once you start treating with miticides in your hives will you stop rotating brood frames back up into your honey supers? My understanding is that when rotating old brood frames when using miticide, the frames need to be discarded?

That was really interesting, ... especially liked looking at the old Penders, an old Tyre tube for bellows, just keeping it simple, and 100 years later they are pretty much still the same .... cheers