Varroa control with forced brood breaks.
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- Опубліковано 26 січ 2022
- All about how i have used new cages last summer to cage my queens and give the colony a brood break. queens were caged in July last summer, just as the summer flow was finishing.
Here is the link to the cages. I am very pleased with their performance: www.apimobru.com
Just for comparison here is the link to the Scalvini cage:www.apiculture.net/varroa/407... there are many links but I cannot find the manufacturers. - Домашні улюбленці та дикі тварини
Here's a Trick Ian Steppler uses to find his queens with next to no effort:
1: Use a spare Brood chamber Or remove the brood comb.
2: Place an excluder attached to a bottomless container/ old super on top of your brood chamber .
3: Take your frames and shake the bees on top of the excluder. Bees will go down through it but the queen won't :)
Its basically making a bee sieve that will only retain queens (and drones).
Another good way, Bob Winnie has a similar when making nucs. thanks for sharing.
Wow! That queen catcher is amazing! I want one. lol
It is also brilliantly designed so as to not pinch arms and legs.
Yes `Jason, it seems really good and its survived been thrown around my truck, stood on etc.seems really good and above all, gloves on whilst using it is genius!💯
This is one of the most important videos on varroa on UA-cam. Thank you for this.
Great video Richard. I have been chemical-free since 2014. I truly think that strategic brood breaks as part of my colony management has been the key to that being possible. Keep up the great work and we love your videos.
thanks Buddy! well I believe its certainly something a beekeeper should try at least to know if it works for him/her or not!
Another way to achieve the same results without needing cages and cutting frames. Promoted by dr. Jennifer Berry in U.S.A..
Move queen over an excluder into honey super or an empty box making sure that there is only one empty drawn frame for her to lay in (rest could be honey or foundation).
Bees have access to her, still moving her pheromones around. Queen is not stressed because of confinement; can still lay on that empty
drawn frame. After 13 days, excluder is removed. Queen has access to the whole hive and keeps laying. The frame she laid in above the
excluder is removed and used to start new nucs. The colony is treated with oxalic 7 days after releasing the queen; by then there is
no capped brood in the hive and all the mites are phoretic. The new nucs started are also treated with oxalic 19 days (or so) after introducing
a queen cell.
Thanks Chris, yes I have briefly seen this method, there is a few ways to do a similar thing and removing brood and the queen is often the main part of the manipulation. thanks for your comments!
Brilliant design, thanks for sharing. Nice seeing you at Hive Live
I was also really impressed with these cages.
thanks!
Working my way through all your vid and this one is great, will be trying brood breaks and ordering my self a cage. Thanks alot
once again I envy your work ethics! and I am very much in agreement with you when it comes to trying new things. in addition to making you very proud when you get good results it also makes beekeeping much more fun. good luck my friend and I hope we will see you soon moving your operations in the new building. with your ever increasing workload you need to become as efficient as you possibly can.
Great job explaining. Very thorough and informative. Glad it worked out so well. Thanks so much for sharing.
thanks Peter I hope some will able to benefit from it!
Thanks, Richard. Great information . I'll give it a go this season.
thanks Gary, hope you get successful results.
Beautifull building you're in
Many thanks Richard for this massive batch of informations ! I will quickly order some cages and of course a queen catcher ! Warm thanks for these clear informations, sharing opinion ! In addition, I can inprove my english level ;-)
Warm regards, Nicolas
Nicholas, it’s a pleasure to share to beekeepers who take on the concept and think about the implications for them in their own situation. This is not for everyone because everyone has a different set of circumstances! Thank you for your kind words. Working together and sharing ideas and results is key!!
Your English is pretty good if you can understand me!!💪🏻😜🙌
My biggest misteke was knowing about it from ltalians for 15 years, and l whayted 4 years to try it.. and one more to do it on most of my hives.
The way they polish and prepare the frames over the brood break, and how fast the queen lays after it is beautiful. The jump of a generation of brood in the long dearth saved my bees.
I was whayting for this.. Great job. I knew you will explain it.. now it's on them to try
well we can only share what we think might be a good option for someone with a similar set up like mine but its not for everyone!
This is great information! Thank you Sir!
Fantastic video! Thank you so much for sharing :)
Great video thanks for sharing I am a beekeeper here in the states. Going into my 4th year. I lost some of my bees over the winter. It was because of the mites and me. Setting out swarm traps in April to see if I can catch some bees.
Always to the point and understandable
Thank you Tom.
What a great informative video with so much detail. I think you have hit the nail on the head by doing it this way . I was not sure about after you released the queen back in do you leave the queen cage mounted into the frame to have it in place for the next time or do you remove the cage also thanks again for all your video’s.
Thanks Kathy, It’s up to you. You can put in a piece of wood so that the cage does not get any comb in it until next season. That way you can use it to hold a swarmy queen for a few days if you need. It’s a good idea to have one cage in every hive ready to use if you need it.
I'm not using Apivar anymore last spring putting one strip into nucs I had 9 nucs go queenless the following week. It had to be Apivar
I had also unexplained Queen disappearance in the autumn after using Apivar. I also so had a large drop varroa using oxalic acid after using Apivar I did send a message to manufacturers of Apivar they never got back to me.
Hi Jesse, I have unexplained disappearance occasionally. I never found a definitive answer yet. but so far the results of last years work ;looks really promising so watch this space. thanks for your comments.
Thank you
thanks Robert!
Hey man. I haven't said hi in a little bit so HI. Lol
hi Man !😀
Brood breaks oav treatment is important. Good way to take out any mites building up immunity to Amitraz .. we get nice long one in the north .. wasn't for that I'd be doing something for a brood break
The ZEST hive has proven itself to be functionally free of Varroa.
The probable cause is that the ZEST is a naturally humid and consistently warm environment.
Varroa do not thrive in a humid environment. The ZEST hive is up to 20% more humid.
Varroa also does not like a shortened bee pupation period caused by the 39 times better insulation than a conventional thin walled wood hive, which gives the varroa less time to mature in the cells. The bee pupation time is up to 3 days shorter in a ZEST due to its high insulation
Great work! Although compared to Apivar/Apigard/Formic etc that's a lot of work :( I only have a few colonies and I still think doing it this approach will be too much work for me.
If we are talking about natural beekeeing, Formic, Oxalic or Apiguard are all considered natural, right? And I think you are using Oxalic acid during brood break too? I think your approach is both mite-kill and cost effective :). Formic and Apiguard are not only costly they also quite disruptive to the hives.
If one has lots of frames (probably people focusing on selling nucs), probably swapping frames can be an alternative? i.e. take all the frames with sealed brood out, shake all the bees back into the box, replace the frames with drawn foundation. Without any seal brood one can immediately apply an oxalic aid treatment, achieving a high kill rate. The brood frames can then be frozen to kill the mites and later put back into hives to clean. Disclaimer: I have never done this. lol. Just a though. I don't have extra frames to keep around. For my few hives I do a combination of Formic and Apivar.
Hi Richard! In the video you stated that you are using 2.5 grams of Oxalic Acid. Is this dose for a single deep? If you running double deeps, do you double it to 5 grams?
In Addition, I have a question about mini plus (6 or 12 "cadrons" frames)... Do you think it's ok to cage a queen in 12 frame miniplus ? (horizontal or vertical scheme). Curious to know your opinion !
Hi Nicholas, sorry for the late reply, I think you would be fine, providing the mini plus is well populated and has at least two bodies (12 frames ) to use. I will try it in the mini plus this season but I dont know if it is as necessary as we often remove the queens and give the colony a brood break between queens without realising it. keep in touch.
Hi Richard...When you do the oxalic treatment...do you get the queen out of the hive? would it be possible for him not to receive the acid? a greeting .... always grateful for your videos.
Hello, absolutely no reason to remove the queen.all Oxyalic Acid treatments are proven not to damage the queens.
ok maestro.. thanks
It's a shame that nobody in UK seems to supply queen confinement cages. I had to order from Italy, which is expensive following brexit.
Damned Brexit, couldn't agree more! its a pain on so many levels!
Those are nice queen cages. I can't find those in the USA. I've been looking for years.
I made all of my before l could buy them. Two sides are cut plastic pvc excluders.. 7 × 5cm. The frame for it is 3cm wide wood (the 4 sides that go in the comb). Cut a channel in the wood for one excluder side.. make like a sliding door (a giliotine). So it's easy to put the queen in. It's easy to make and l still use those in my hives
@@researcherAmateur I agree, DIY cages are quite well.
My old man still trying to help beekeepers in the comment section. Ahh, what's that say in English language... "you can bring a camel to the water, but you can't make it drink".
It's a rainy day, we're working on old equipment and watching YT. But he's doing more tiping than cleaning
@@researcherAmateur Thanks Danny
the link is on the top of the page underneath the title and description. thank you for your comment.
Richard your bee gloves are wonderful they are better then any gloves here in the states and I like the queen catcher and holder as well you folks have better bee equipment there then we do in the states the video was great what is the link for the gloves and the queen catcher thing Thanks have a great day
He says the name of the manufacturer of the catcher in the video, just google it.
the gloves are often seen in France, "Gants Special" in this catalogue not sure if they will export but. www.apiculture-lerouge.com/wa_files/Catalogue_20Oise_202021.pdf
Always checking and observing varroa numbers and how to deal with them. Sometimes you have it licked then woops what happened
yes Dan I agree, its always a nightmare. we have to treat them as many ways as possible.
Does anyone have anything equivalent in the US? If you do, please comment with a link of what you have used.
I'm thinking of using the brood break this year in August. Looking into option for what to do with her. May put her into 2 framers.
yes that is also a good option, there are a few ways concerning getting the queen to lay elsewhere. thanks for commenting.
@@richardnoel3141 Thank you I would give her, her own bees, new comb and treat the nuc the next day and maybe again. OAV works best on multiple uses. It's just that type of treatment. Mites are no different than bedbug and roaches. You need to hit them and stay at it to get rid of them. OAV isn't that hard on bees so It's my treatment of choice because it's affordable. May also be a good time to add a new queen to the hive. Maybe take my honey a month early and start a brood break the first of july. Something needs to change because it's not working.
Hi Richard - saw your video on forced brood breaks and bought the queen cages - but only just putting queens in now (August 27th ) and worried that after her 3 weeks in captivity, any brood she lays will only start to emerge in 6/7/8 October - wont that be a bit late for enough winter bees to be born?. I'm in South East England and cant remember what activity and weather we get in Octobers in more than general terms.
Shouldn’t be a problem. You can release queens a couple of days earlier to be honest because you can still time thst brood break when mites are exposed to the max. Unlikely there will be any drone brood either. Give two treatments at least of VOA 5/6 days apart on day 21/22
Can you use the queen catcher to load mailing queen cages? And could you use the cages to bank queens?
yes you can, as long as she has the similar sized tube to crawl in to. Its a neat thing!
Speaking of varroa... how resistant are the queens you raised from that immune line? did the genetics manage to pass on?
Nothing had any resistance at all. All had high mite loads and were missing other traités so it was a lot of work for virtually no reward.. I learnt a lot, mostly though not to get my hopes up!!🤷🏼♂️
@@richardnoel3141 from what I understand (could be wrong) the genes responsible for immunity are passed by the drones... so it makes breeding that trait like winning the lottery at best. My question is... can these genes eventually be passed by the queens too? (with enough crossbreeding so it switches from drones only to both queens AND drones)
@@lagrangebees yes they can but you have to open mate, or inseminate from those few that have passed on the genetic line of its resistance, ( after a very severe and rigorous testing protocol) then breed from those again and again, then while you do that the other traits that you try to keep and the bees are different to how you started. its a massive job, absolutely massive!
My strategy is treatment free beekeeping with small cells and compact broodchambers (dadant or one hive beeking in nationals). Already 4, 5 and 6 years my buckfastbees keep a good condition and are well honeyperformers without any treatment. Ofcourse I've started a breeding ans selection programm with as maandag goal low mite growth. Kind regards Ben Som de Cerff from the Netherlands
Hi Richard. Do you plan to vape your colonies in the spring? Or do you feel the mite kill you got from caging will see you through till the summer?
Hi Barbers Bees, I will do some early mite washes to get a picture of the colonies and decide the but usually I do not vape until late autumn early winter or unless I cage the queens, then it is early august. I have also treated this year already in the 1st week of December. best wishes
@@richardnoel3141 I’m going to do the same with the mite washes. I think the mite load will be high this spring. Having some really mild weather this winter and especially for January here in the uk. Hoping for a weekend of work and some mild weather. Might look in a couple of hives see what amount of brood rearing is going on.
@@barbersbees9834 good idea, nothing wrong with a careful brief look. best wishes!
Looks easy for full comb frame... how would this work if you're using plastic foundation?
Yes I agree, you could still cut a hole in the plastic foundation. The bees will
Make repairs where anything is adrift and cement it all back together. Just have a good cérated knife. I am pretty ditty sure you will have no problems.
@@richardnoel3141 I wonder if I cut the comb down to the foundation of two adjacent frames if that Queen cage would fit bridged between the frames?
@@MikeChamplin no, it needs to be between the frame other wise the bees may not be able to access the queen due to lack of room opposite the cage
I just sawed out a neat little square by drilling some small holes first.
@@thesloppyscientist4428 yes that does make getting the jigsaw of hand saw easier to get in in the first instance!
May I say my opinion about forced brood break... Iam on Croatian part of the Mediterranean , but we have Carniolian bees only. We DONT HAVE ITALIAN BEES. It is very important information because Italian beekeepers "invented" queen isolation. Main reason for that is ITALIAN BEES, and their way of living. They brooding all the time, and varoa is the serious issue. Rest of us with other "dark type of bees" ( melifera,carnica, russian...) dont have so intensive problem because of the natural brood breaks. August and winter time is prime time for varoa management. Instead of using queen invasive , HYUGE labor intensive and unnecessary risk putting activity, we use no-brood time windows during splinting hives, making Nuks, and specially August low or no brood period. In August you can seriously kick down varoa,, which will put you in the safe zone for autumn treatments. Varoa will have no power to prosper in autumn. Forced brood breaks is good idea for few hives in the backyard,,, or for increase honey collecting with less brood, but I cannot imagine how to do it on 100, 500 or 1000 hives without huge labor force. Thnks, GOOD VIDEO,,, Jurica
My friend, l had those seme opinions, on the seme climat, with the seme bees... l lost 5 years knowing about it and not trying it. This year it will be 10 years that l'm doing it. My friends in ltaly are doing it on more than 1000 hives every year.
It's not just about varroa, it's about the change of the generation and Super healthy new bees you get. Don't do the seme misteke l did.. opinions are not practic.
It's easy to make 2 cages and try.. I will make some pictures.. sent you an email. I have a strong flow after lvy, so l'm working with that timing. I will never forgive my self that l lost 5 years having opinions
@@researcherAmateur sorry Danny, but we have seriously different nectar flow from 1.8 forward. You have Sicily like climate on your island. I have Paris like climate. Anyhow, working load, time consume , risk... it is not my way of beekeeping. Sorry :)
@@mediteranskopcelarenje-tar1205 l know how it is. It's difficult to change opinions. I'm trying it for years by now. With not much luck. I suggest to watch Ralph Büchler on National Honey Show channel. Part 3 of 4.
Having an opinion, it's not the seme as trying in practic. If the Germans can do it in their climat everybade can do it. It doesn't have to be this cage.. but l always come back to it.. lt is the best.
Without trying different things you will end up like those 99% of our old beeks.. thinking they know everything
@@researcherAmateur shortly, it is the designion, not opinion. You can get your goals on lots of ways.
@@mediteranskopcelarenje-tar1205 l can only suggest
The small cages for the queens have bad impact to the queen .... also, why losing time by caging the queens? the same effect we have if we eliminate all frames with capped brood and give new empty frames to the queen .... I do not talk about making nucs, capped brood in this case we have to melted .... all bees stay in colony, nurse bees and foragers .... colony stays strong, the queen starts immidetely new brood in low mite infestation due to they are eliminated in capped brod ... I know that this sound extremely cruel but I am sure it will eliminate more than 50-60% of varoa mites ... one more treatment with formic acid in the same time can eliminate varoa mites out of brood .... isn't in this case high% of varoa mites destroyed? We need only builted spare frames. Think about other benefits- bees do not get older to the time we release the queen and the colony works with full power at once .... waisting time to make brood breaking is not nesessery ..... we can break brood in one day ... cheers
well as they say, if it works for you then carry on doing ity! than you for commenting. I generally dont believe in culling brood, even though I understand its advantages.
Is there any way they could be shipped to the USA
Or you built a cage with framewood and queen excluder (probably with plastic is the easiest way). Or maybe fix or built it in a half honeycomb?
I did it, but it took a while.
I think they could but there would be different tariffs due to border controls I think.
@@richardnoel3141 I'm a beekeeper in the US and have ordered these cages for all my hives. I absolutely agree with you on how useful they are. I also cage the queens during the summer dearth for about 21-24 days and then use oxalic acid when she is released. They will ship the cages to the US, but the shipping costs about $30-40 and it takes about a month before it gets to you because of customs. If you order at least 60 or so, they are similar in price to a one time conventional treatment, but they are permanent and reusable. I can't believe more beekeepers aren't using them. They are like gold!
Who doesn’t has varroa
Barrr. Can’t order small amounts
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