Hi Mike, we have been using your idea of using a mesh laundry basket to capture swarms, works well particularly when the bees are on the ground they acually march in to the basket, Thanks Anton
@@AussieMikesBees Be careful and not get sold on junk to waste money. There's a lot of products that work. You're going to have to let the bees learn how to deal with the mites gradually because if you treat them 100% they will always fail to the mite loads in the fall/winter. I have strong colonies that haven't been treated in years. That's where you want to bee eventually. Thanks!
I hear you, Rodney. I've been on a couple of industry workshops to determine a path forward and to direct research funding wisely. There's a strong focus on breeding for varroa resistance, but it will take time. Some have said to import semen and queens from varroa resistant stock to accelerate the program. The risk is we then import the viruses we don't yet have. No DWV so far. There's been advice suggesting it's better to develop our own stock . In the meantime, with massive reinfestation rates, we're facing years of back to back treatments, making it difficult to rotate treatments. The original projection of untreated hives dying within two years has proved too conservative. They're dying within six months, and that's without viruses. SHB seems to cashing in with exploding numbers fed by crashing colonies. We're in for a rough ride for a while.
you are a very patient man to do that. the worst pest for bee keepers is other bee keepers. i love that machine, surely there is someone here in Oz who can make it here?
Thanks, Kevin. Yes, beekeepers like to stand in the shot. It would be great if there was a locally made equivalent, but as a business model it would be risky. The market here is still tiny and it costs quite a bit to set up for manufacturing. You’d have to be careful not to infringe on any patents, too. Does anyone make anything here anymore. I would be suspicious of any Chinese product?
@@AussieMikesBees…I absolutely agree with you , what a great product, I think maybe the only thing that might be a bump in the road is the price of these machines , hobby bee keepers may not afford these for a few hives , just my thoughts on it but is a fantastic way of controlling the veroa mite for sure.
@fishmut thanks. It is pricey and out of reach of most hobby beekeepers. That's why I think it will work well to have the bee club buy it and rent it out to members. That's what my local club will do. When the members saw it in action, it was a no brainer. Just have to be patient waiting for it to ship in from Austria.
I am an American beekeeper. And treating with organic acids like formic or oxalic does not taint honey or the comb. Treatment is necessary here. Varrora will destroy whole apiarys
Thanks for your comment. Australia is such a small market, there is little interest from suppliers spending the huge fees to register their products. So far, FormicPro and Apiguard are the only non-synthetic options. Of course, beekeepers are doing what they can to keep their bees healthy, so many are using oxalic acid and formic acid illegally. I’m lobbying government to amend the legislation to include an own use exemption clause so that beekeepers can use unregistered organic options on their own bees.
As a small hobbyist with only 12 hives, Ill keep splitting my stronger colonies with the lower mite counts and hoping that nature will prevail. I refuse to use any chemicals .. I also only take honey af the end of Spring/beginning of Summer and never in the Autumn ..so I never have to feed them in winter... Mendocino/Sonoma County California You do you.. Ill do me... ... and good luck to all!!
Thanks for the material - interesting. In Russia (in the former Soviet Union in general) the method of heat treatment has been used for decades, but it has not become widespread due, probably, to its complexity, effort and time consuming, especially for the big apiaries. There the approach is to treat flying bees, and not frames with brood. The design of the device, of course, is different. The Austrians come from other side - this is interesting. I believe that if flying bees will be treated with organic acids while frames with brood are being treated - the efficiency will increase many times over. But the method itself - treatment with heat - is very effective - no doubts.
Thanks for the information. There’s been a lot of work on hyperthermia for decades, but we don’t hear much about it in the west. I had the same thought about using oxalic acid sublimation on the hive while the brood frames are in the machine. OA is still illegal here, so it would be necessary to break the law. Wiping out all the mites in the cells is 80% or more of the mites, so already very effective. Doing another treatment as soon as the treated brood emerges will take out most of what is left.
@@AussieMikesBees It is a pity that organic acids are illegal in Australia. They do not accumulate in anything (neither in honey, nor in wax, nor in hive materials), they disappear without a trace in a couple of days, unlike heavier chemicals like amitraz. Without them, of course, all these measures have an extremely short-term effect. We can only hope for quick improvements at the legislative level. I wish you good health, good honey harvests and healthy bee colonies and success in general.
@@zhenyab I agree with you. I’m lobbying to have our legislation amended to include a New Zealand style “Own Use Exemption “ clause that would allow beekeepers to treat there own bees with products, delivery methods and doses that are proved safe and effective, but might be not registered or the registration hasn’t kept up with best practices.
That's bee smart, the study is sound and considers their life cycle repercussions. It's ingenious and with a generator silencers your noise levels are more acceptable. I would be curious too know if this treatment could lead to a more heat resistance for rising temperatures, if done annually whilst the queen goes from virgin to retired queen via off emergent queen offspring??
Thanks for your comments. Yes a generator silencer could be a thing, though with a long enough extension lead the noise is not noticable. The lead is reasonably long to ensure the exhaust fumes don't bother the bees. The idea of resistance is intriguing. Do you mean the varroa becoming heat resistant or the bees? I don't see the varroa becoming resistant, considering their death interferes with reproduction and therefore mutation. As for the bees, the queen is not placed in the Varroa Controller. The intended treatment target is worker pupae. Even if other pupae were treated, it only happens once in their life. I wouldn't think a single exposure is enough to cause a genetic mutation. I'm not a scientist though.
Thanks for your questions, Amanda. The Australian distributor has the first shipments on the way. Check out www.varroacontrolleraustralia.com.au for information and pricing.
Regarding financial assistance to deal with Varroa, no. We’re on our own now. The only money offered was reimbursement for destroyed hives during the eradication phase. There is education through in person one day workshops and online materials.
Thanks Mike, very interesting. Have you purchased one yet? Each bee club could have one to hire out to members as the price is way too much for the hobby bee keeper like myself with only 3 hives. Have you looked at the Zest hive? Bill Summers said he is treatment free with these hives, work on the same principle with heat and humidity. Was thinking of building one this year, just waiting for my hubby to retire end of Oct. Oh what do the adult bees do without the frames in hive for 2 hrs?
Thanks, Francine. I've ordered the 10frame model. I think it would be a good topic for my University of Florida Master Craftsman Beekeeper research project. Our club will probably order one after a committee meeting decision to hire out. Everyone at the field day demonstration were keen to be chemical free. I think the club ownership model will work well. I'm committed to changing over to Slovenian hives redesigned with Langstroth sized frames. It's a very gentle way to keep bees for the bees and the keeper. I'm setting up to manufacture them for the Aussie market and hopefully get them installed in some schools. It's the most accessible system for people who can't lift heavy boxes, even those in wheelchair. The adult bees in the hive just hang out in the open space. I've seen the same thing when I take a frame or two to put in display boxes for a few hours. They don't have enough time to start building comb.
@@AussieMikesBees No. Just that the hardware could be installed on each hive semi permanently. Perhaps as a new base design or deep. A heater, temperature control, and blower to distribute the heat through the hive. It could have a timer that turns it on per a schedule, or could be operated manually. The main point though being that you don't have to dismantle the hives and move things around at great effort and higher risk to the bees. The whole hive can be done at once. If you have more than a few hives, the method here seems it would be somewhat tedious. Independent heaters eliminates that issue.
Ok, I understand. The problem remains that all attempts to heat hives with bees in them have failed because the bees go into overdrive to bring the temperature back to 35C. Unless the temperature can be sustained at 41.5C for two hours, the mites survive. If the temperature reaches 44C, the bees start dying.
@@AussieMikesBees I would guess it would only take a few hundred watts to heat a hive up, and overpower anything the bees could do. You close it up though and initiate it manually. It would definitely need a good fan as the temperature range is pretty narrow and it would need to be distributed pretty evenly. The temp sensor would probably need to be placed near the top to make sure it didn't get too hot vs lower down, and maybe another (at least during test trials) in the bottom box to verify it got hot enough. Add a 400W solar panel and a controller to cycle each hive once per month and now we have a commercial product.
Great question. I don't know anything about incubators. The ones I've seen are for hatching chicken eggs and appear to control temperature and humidity. Maybe you can adapt one to work with frames of brood. I'm sure there will be beekeepers go down that path and I'd love to see what they come up with. The market for egg incubators is huge, so the market demand brings costs down. The Varroa Controller has a small market and is made in Austria. Shipping from Austria is very expensive and slow, driving the cost up.
@AussieMikesBees I build my own incubators, and I don't see much difference. Also, having layens hives, I can't use this because it looks like a langstroth.
That’s great. That’s not my area of expertise, so I wouldn’t attempt it, but I’d be interested to hear how yours goes. Varroa Controller have a deep model that I believe takes Layens frames.
It is a large capital outlay, but if you’re in beekeeping for the long term, the cost per hive per treatment is reasonable. The original machines are still in use 14years later, so it reliable. Divide the number of treatments done over 14 years compared to cost of chemical treatments in Australia. We’ll be treating almost non-stop until the mite levels stabilise, driving up the cost of chemical treatments. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the cost of a capital purchase is quickly forgotten, but an ongoing expense is an ongoing reminder of costs.
Anything we do for the next few years is going to be time consuming and expensive. Even the low material cost of oxalic acid sublimation (not yet legal here) is labour intensive in that it requires treatment every five days for five treatments to cover the brood cycle. If your apiary is on a flow 250km away, that’s 2500km of travel. Could workout if it coincides with taking the supers for harvest. With the Varroa Controller, spend a day treating the apiary with multiple machines to cover all hives. Do health checks while you’re at it. In Europe it’s done this way once each in spring, summer and autumn., which is three days work per apiary per year and no chemical costs. If they use the Duplex Framebox, that would require an extra day a couple of weeks ahead of treatment to set the queen up with two frames, so six days work per apiary per season. It will be much more here for a few years until varroa levels stabilise.
The varroa destructor mite arrived into Australia in the Apis Cerana colonies that have been discovered to be swarming around parts of Australia. There are no apis cerana colonies that are mite free and since youve got the mite deformed wings and spotty brood will tell you when you need to treat.
Not sure where you heard that. Apis cerana so far is only in the Cairns area. It was from a single colony and every colony caught and tested since is the same genetic line. This is good news because eventually inbreeding will doom them unless they meet up with a new incursion.. There’s been no Varroa destructor found in any of the colonies so far. The varroa outbreak in NSW is suspected to have been on illegally imported Apis mellifera queens. There hasn’t been any detection of DWV. Untreated colonies are perishing within six months from the massive infestation levels. Some washes have hundreds of mites.
Thanks, Albee. I don’t know if there’s a US distributor, but if you go to the Euro site, they’ll either ship direct or put you in touch with your nearest distributor varroa-controller.com/varroa-controller/
You do know that varroa have been in most areas of the planet for many years. There are a few basic treatments to mitigate their damage. Learn their habits , life cycle and breeding methods. Don't start from scratch, learning to deal with them. Organic acids are very effective , relatively easy to use and you don't need a cost prohibitive, gigantic industrial machine, to keep on keeping bees. Keep Beekeeping as the obsession. Best wishes only. Cheers..
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Yes, I agree. Aussies have the opportunity to learn from everyone that have dealt with Varroa for decades. Unfortunately, many organic treatment options are not yet registered, so their use here is illegal. Many are doing it anyway. I am lobbying government to amend the legislation to include a New Zealand style “Own Use Exemption “ clause that would allow beekeepers to use effective, safe but unregistered products on their own hives. This would allow them to care for their bees without breaking the law. In the meantime, I’m open to ideas from all angles. I like the idea of zero chemicals and hyperthermia looks good to me. I’ll do a series of videos when mine arrives in nine weeks.
Mites are certainly not a major problem to most beekeepers in the UK, just another part of bee husbandry. The most used treatment in the UK is a traditional wood cleaner and not authorised either due to greedy companies charging a fortune for a product that costs pence but is widely used, with care.
@@pipthedog11 thanks for your comment. Eventually it will be a normal part of bee husbandry here too. In the meantime, those that adapt will still be beekeepers and those that don’t, won’t. There are many that have made no effort to learn, let alone do anything. I’ll absorb everything I can get my eyes on and try things out. I’ve ordered one of these devices and will be keeping a record of the practically of its use and efficacy. This is the first time it will be put to the test in an unstable establishment phase. My obsession is unstoppable. I actually find varroa an incredibly fascinating bug. Hate them of course, but sooo interesting.
@@AussieMikesBees Although I wouldn’t wish this pest on anyone, Australia is lucky that the majority of the world now has this pest and there is a vast amount of research to alleviate the damage this pest can do if ignored. I would urge anyone who wants to follow Mike Palmer who has, for me been a lead in practical advice for beekeepers and bee farmers.
We're also lucky that we don't yet have DWV. Yes, Michael Palmer has very good sustainable beekeeping strategies. One of the good ones from which to learn.
The way the government is so keen on us doing biosecurity until it's actually going to take work from them too, and then it's too hard and they just give up .. there was no need to give up and let varroa run wild in this country. They could have eradicated it if they'd just tried a bit harder. But that would have cost them money, and why would they do that when they could give up and let it cost us money forever after?
Once it has made it into the feral bee population it becomes impossible to contain. The Australian bush is enormous. We cannot even control the cane toad and they, are by comparison, far easier to see 🥸
Good point, Kevin. It doesn't exactly compare to chemical treatments that only knock out phoretic mites. This only knocks out the 80% under the caps. So a wash will show the same count immediately after treatment. In two weeks when the brood has emerged without mites it may make a count difference. In our unstable period, we're consistently getting counts of above 30 and often way higher within days of removing treatment. Back to back treatments for the next few years. Each treatment costing $20 to $35. OA is not yet approved.
To follow up, the treated frames were fully emerged six days after treatment. The washes showed lower counts (below threshold) than before the treatment (way above threshold). My guess is that any phoretic mites present at the time of treatment are now under newly capped brood. Ideally, they would be treated now, but we don't have one of the Varroa Controllers.
I run singles, so not an issue for me. If it’s done when doing an inspection anyway, it’s not much more effort. You do have to lift the boxes again to return the frames, but is that any more effort than returning weeks later to remove strips and potentially return supers?
Thanks for the comment, Jordan. How many people have a thousand hives in one apiary? To me, it’s a per apiary treatment plan. You might have a few hundred hives, any single apiary has 50. With a single Varroa Controller, one person could treat 30 hives in a day. Larger apiaries could be handled by two or more VCs.
I’m interested to read your research. How many hives in the research, how many control hives, how many were tested at what temperatures for what periods of time? How was the health of the bees and pupae determined post treatment. With the hives in this video, all the brood emerged within five days. There were no piles of dead bees out the front, like I’ve seen with FormicPro. Inside the hives there were loads of healthy looking, active young bees.
Ive been beekeeping in USA my whole life 59 years and the destructor mite since 1995. Its simple to organically eradicate these mites. Its a three times a year procedure. There are many things you can do that are inexpensive and very easy. That method is very complicated and would need to be done three times per year. It is expensive and time consuming. They tried to sell that device in USA years ago.
Thanks for your comment and insight. I look forward to the time when three times a year works. At the moment, we are seeing almost instant reinfestation during the establishment phase which has been predicted to last up to three years from initial infestation. Though they did predict that without DWV here, it would take up to two years for a colony to collapse. It is in fact taking only six months in many cases. Within days of removing treatment strips, washes show 20 to 50 mites in some areas. Most of NSW have no brood breaks and good flows almost year round. Forcing brood breaks or restricting laying to two frames could become standard practice. Many of the treatments available elsewhere aren't being registered. We're a tiny market, so it would take too long to get a return on the costs. We don't even have OA yet, though there are two OA products undergoing registration . There are of course, plenty of beekeepers using OA anyway.
I appreciate your lack of chemicals...but this is very time consuming...Formic acid is used in nature ..Fire ants.. and Formic pro and mite away quick strips can be used with supers on .
@@AussieMikesBees The government better stop procrastinating on allowing organic treatments. There is NO time to waste for the profits of their chemical mafia. The mites coming right back after treatments mean your bees are robbing dying mite infested colonies. Obviously a real mite disaster. Seems they dont care since they wont let beekeepers manage it safely.
I hear ya. Unfortunately, Australia is very much a nanny state. Bureaucrats believe they know how you should live your life better than you do. There are many beekeepers treating with OA illegally. We do what we have to do to care for our bees.
This is a rediculous amount of work. Combined with an OAV treatment on the hives after the brood is removed it could work for people with just a few hives. Without the OAV you are just putting the frames back into an infested colony.
It got real quiet when he said the price. Careful Aussies, there are going to be plenty of people after your $. Brood breaks without this expensive machine would be about as effective.
Yes, that was my first thought too. OA isn't approved yet, although many are using it anyway. The idea of the Double Frame Box is to trap most of the mites, then treat and do it again. In Europe, it's done three times a year spring, summer and autumn, but we have to treat continuously until mite levels stabilise. Mite counts rise between 30 and 100 within days of treatment removal from the massive reinfestation.
Yes, it is more time consuming than some other treatment methods. Though, the idea of treating an apiary within one day is appealing. Not having to take supers away, return them later and coming back to remove strips saves time. I know some treatments can be done with supers on, but can taint the flavour. I’m looking forward to testing and collecting data when I get mine.
While it’s true that most will choose a perhaps easier, chemical option, there are European beekeepers treating hives three times a year with only this device. No chemicals. At this stage, two containers of these have been sold to Australians before reaching the port.
Thanks for your comment, Gabriel. The capital outlay is out of the reach of many hobbyists, but is viable when a club buys it for members to hire for a small fee. There are many commercial beekeepers in Europe using them and being chemical free, command a higher price for their honey. They do three treatments a year, don’t have to remove supers and if necessary can treat repeatedly without concern of chemical resistance or harming bees. As always, it’s a business decision each individual makes for their operation. One size never fits all.
Yes, I agree. Having bees that take care of mite levels will be a blessing. It’s going to take time for those genetics to develop. It’s taken Randy Oliver seven years of selective breeding and flooding his area with his genetics by giving queens to all his neighbouring beekeepers to reach a stage where mite counts are consistently low. It will take Aussie breeders years to reach that stage. Letting all the colonies die and breeding from survivor stock would decimate an important industry. That won’t happen. Hobby beekeepers can try it, but until mite levels stabilise I think they’ll be replacing colonies time and again. In the meantime, I’ll do what is necessary to keep my bees healthy.
An Irish bee keeper dumps all of his bees into a heater for an hour at the end of each season. But this is very slow. I actually like what Cuba did. The Govt said NO TREATMENT when varroa arrived. 90% of the 200,000 hives died. Within 5 yrs they had 200,000 resistant hives and didn't need to treat. Now they sell their honey as organic honey at a premium.
I have heard of the Cuba story and its great that it worked for them. In Australia, there are so many dependant industries, there's no way they would allow 90% losses. During the eradication phase, businesses were destroyed and people on suicide watch.
@@AussieMikesBees It's not an eradication phase. Hives that were not already resistant to Varroa, died. Then they bred from the survivors. The African bees that it came from were resistant for millennia.
Can you please refer the name of the Irish beekeeper using the heat treatment as I’m hoping to begin a research project on organic varroa treatment and Irish AMM honeybee varroa resistance (SMR/VSH) breeding in Ireland. A growing number of Irish beekeepers rely solely on OA and Thymol/Apiguard treatments combined with brood breaks and drone removal to control varroa effectively as there are far too many downsides to Apivar/synthetic miticide treatments in addition to the inevitable occurrence of synthetic miticide resistance.
Never mind …I’m guessing it’s Andy Antonov of Irish Bees… literally the only 2 videos of his that I had not watched!🤦♂️ Andy is a very clever innovative beekeeper who saved my bacon when I began beekeeping last year but tbh I don’t think I’m brave enough for some of his advanced methods just yet so I’ll stick to my winter OA vapour treatment and Summer OA & thymol/Apiguard treatments for now!😅
poor bees and poor beekeepers. There has to be better and easier solution. It is defintely not a weapon. You could call this as weapon if it would solve problem completely and easy, Like you brought this device pressed the button and beehives in radius 5 m free of varroa completely.
Thanks for commenting, Alex. If someone came up with a device like that and it did no harm to anything else, they’d find instant fame and fortune. In the meantime, we do what we can until mite resistant bees become normal. I like the Varroa Controller’s zero chemical approach.
@@AussieMikesBees If Cuba has might resistant bees why not to take from there? Actually, the bees can be taken later if needed. It might worth trying to get our own in Australia.
We’re lucky for now that we don’t have the viruses, such as Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) yet. There is the very high risk of importing viruses with sperm and queens. Also, the most successful breeding programs for varroa resistance comes from local stock that is already adapted to local conditions. Imported genetics may succumb to local conditions or strains of diseases they’re not adapted to. There has been breeders working on varroa resistance here even before varroa showed up, so we’re not starting from scratch. It’ll still take time, though.
Hi Mike, we have been using your idea of using a mesh laundry basket to capture swarms, works well particularly when the bees are on the ground they acually march in to the basket, Thanks Anton
Thanks, Anton.
Yes, they’re such an easy swarm catching tool and take up no space in the car ready for action.
Cheers, Mike
Now the learning curve starts. Thanks Mike!
Thanks, Rodney. Yes, there's so much to learn. I definitely like the way this thing works, so I'll get one.
@@AussieMikesBees Be careful and not get sold on junk to waste money. There's a lot of products that work. You're going to have to let the bees learn how to deal with the mites gradually because if you treat them 100% they will always fail to the mite loads in the fall/winter. I have strong colonies that haven't been treated in years. That's where you want to bee eventually. Thanks!
I hear you, Rodney. I've been on a couple of industry workshops to determine a path forward and to direct research funding wisely. There's a strong focus on breeding for varroa resistance, but it will take time. Some have said to import semen and queens from varroa resistant stock to accelerate the program. The risk is we then import the viruses we don't yet have. No DWV so far. There's been advice suggesting it's better to develop our own stock .
In the meantime, with massive reinfestation rates, we're facing years of back to back treatments, making it difficult to rotate treatments. The original projection of untreated hives dying within two years has proved too conservative. They're dying within six months, and that's without viruses. SHB seems to cashing in with exploding numbers fed by crashing colonies.
We're in for a rough ride for a while.
you are a very patient man to do that. the worst pest for bee keepers is other bee keepers. i love that machine, surely there is someone here in Oz who can make it here?
Thanks, Kevin. Yes, beekeepers like to stand in the shot. It would be great if there was a locally made equivalent, but as a business model it would be risky. The market here is still tiny and it costs quite a bit to set up for manufacturing. You’d have to be careful not to infringe on any patents, too. Does anyone make anything here anymore. I would be suspicious of any Chinese product?
@@AussieMikesBees…I absolutely agree with you , what a great product, I think maybe the only thing that might be a bump in the road is the price of these machines , hobby bee keepers may not afford these for a few hives , just my thoughts on it but is a fantastic way of controlling the veroa mite for sure.
@fishmut thanks. It is pricey and out of reach of most hobby beekeepers. That's why I think it will work well to have the bee club buy it and rent it out to members. That's what my local club will do. When the members saw it in action, it was a no brainer. Just have to be patient waiting for it to ship in from Austria.
Thanks Mike.
That was interesting.
A smaller more portable device for a hilly apiary would be useful.
The ten frame model is smaller and lighter, but still a little hefty. I've ordered one and will do some videos on it.
Awesome brood pattern by your queens. What variety are your queens.
Thanks. Those are Italian. They’re mostly well behaved and very productive.
I am an American beekeeper. And treating with organic acids like formic or oxalic does not taint honey or the comb. Treatment is necessary here. Varrora will destroy whole apiarys
Thanks for your comment. Australia is such a small market, there is little interest from suppliers spending the huge fees to register their products. So far, FormicPro and Apiguard are the only non-synthetic options. Of course, beekeepers are doing what they can to keep their bees healthy, so many are using oxalic acid and formic acid illegally. I’m lobbying government to amend the legislation to include an own use exemption clause so that beekeepers can use unregistered organic options on their own bees.
il stick to my oxalic acid vapor once a month all year long. plus three treatments within a week during September.
As a small hobbyist with only 12 hives, Ill keep splitting my stronger colonies with the lower mite counts and hoping that nature will prevail.
I refuse to use any chemicals .. I also only take honey af the end of Spring/beginning of Summer and never in the Autumn ..so I never have to feed them in winter...
Mendocino/Sonoma County California
You do you.. Ill do me...
... and good luck to all!!
Thanks for the material - interesting. In Russia (in the former Soviet Union in general) the method of heat treatment has been used for decades, but it has not become widespread due, probably, to its complexity, effort and time consuming, especially for the big apiaries. There the approach is to treat flying bees, and not frames with brood. The design of the device, of course, is different. The Austrians come from other side - this is interesting. I believe that if flying bees will be treated with organic acids while frames with brood are being treated - the efficiency will increase many times over. But the method itself - treatment with heat - is very effective - no doubts.
Thanks for the information. There’s been a lot of work on hyperthermia for decades, but we don’t hear much about it in the west. I had the same thought about using oxalic acid sublimation on the hive while the brood frames are in the machine. OA is still illegal here, so it would be necessary to break the law. Wiping out all the mites in the cells is 80% or more of the mites, so already very effective. Doing another treatment as soon as the treated brood emerges will take out most of what is left.
@@AussieMikesBees It is a pity that organic acids are illegal in Australia. They do not accumulate in anything (neither in honey, nor in wax, nor in hive materials), they disappear without a trace in a couple of days, unlike heavier chemicals like amitraz. Without them, of course, all these measures have an extremely short-term effect. We can only hope for quick improvements at the legislative level. I wish you good health, good honey harvests and healthy bee colonies and success in general.
@@zhenyab I agree with you. I’m lobbying to have our legislation amended to include a New Zealand style “Own Use Exemption “ clause that would allow beekeepers to treat there own bees with products, delivery methods and doses that are proved safe and effective, but might be not registered or the registration hasn’t kept up with best practices.
That's bee smart, the study is sound and considers their life cycle repercussions. It's ingenious and with a generator silencers your noise levels are more acceptable. I would be curious too know if this treatment could lead to a more heat resistance for rising temperatures, if done annually whilst the queen goes from virgin to retired queen via off emergent queen offspring??
Thanks for your comments. Yes a generator silencer could be a thing, though with a long enough extension lead the noise is not noticable. The lead is reasonably long to ensure the exhaust fumes don't bother the bees.
The idea of resistance is intriguing. Do you mean the varroa becoming heat resistant or the bees? I don't see the varroa becoming resistant, considering their death interferes with reproduction and therefore mutation. As for the bees, the queen is not placed in the Varroa Controller. The intended treatment target is worker pupae. Even if other pupae were treated, it only happens once in their life. I wouldn't think a single exposure is enough to cause a genetic mutation.
I'm not a scientist though.
Are these readily available here? Also wondering if DPI is releasing any funding for commercial beekeepers to combat this ongoing threat?
Thanks for your questions, Amanda. The Australian distributor has the first shipments on the way. Check out www.varroacontrolleraustralia.com.au for information and pricing.
Regarding financial assistance to deal with Varroa, no. We’re on our own now. The only money offered was reimbursement for destroyed hives during the eradication phase. There is education through in person one day workshops and online materials.
Thanks Mike, very interesting. Have you purchased one yet? Each bee club could have one to hire out to members as the price is way too much for the hobby bee keeper like myself with only 3 hives. Have you looked at the Zest hive? Bill Summers said he is treatment free with these hives, work on the same principle with heat and humidity. Was thinking of building one this year, just waiting for my hubby to retire end of Oct. Oh what do the adult bees do without the frames in hive for 2 hrs?
Thanks, Francine. I've ordered the 10frame model. I think it would be a good topic for my University of Florida Master Craftsman Beekeeper research project. Our club will probably order one after a committee meeting decision to hire out. Everyone at the field day demonstration were keen to be chemical free. I think the club ownership model will work well.
I'm committed to changing over to Slovenian hives redesigned with Langstroth sized frames. It's a very gentle way to keep bees for the bees and the keeper. I'm setting up to manufacture them for the Aussie market and hopefully get them installed in some schools. It's the most accessible system for people who can't lift heavy boxes, even those in wheelchair.
The adult bees in the hive just hang out in the open space. I've seen the same thing when I take a frame or two to put in display boxes for a few hours. They don't have enough time to start building comb.
Thanks for that Mike
Make a short box to fit permanently on each hive and this may be practical.
Do you mean permanently heating the hive? That’s been tried before. The bees do their thing to reduce the temperature.
@@AussieMikesBees No. Just that the hardware could be installed on each hive semi permanently. Perhaps as a new base design or deep. A heater, temperature control, and blower to distribute the heat through the hive. It could have a timer that turns it on per a schedule, or could be operated manually. The main point though being that you don't have to dismantle the hives and move things around at great effort and higher risk to the bees. The whole hive can be done at once.
If you have more than a few hives, the method here seems it would be somewhat tedious. Independent heaters eliminates that issue.
Ok, I understand. The problem remains that all attempts to heat hives with bees in them have failed because the bees go into overdrive to bring the temperature back to 35C. Unless the temperature can be sustained at 41.5C for two hours, the mites survive. If the temperature reaches 44C, the bees start dying.
@@AussieMikesBees I would guess it would only take a few hundred watts to heat a hive up, and overpower anything the bees could do. You close it up though and initiate it manually.
It would definitely need a good fan as the temperature range is pretty narrow and it would need to be distributed pretty evenly. The temp sensor would probably need to be placed near the top to make sure it didn't get too hot vs lower down, and maybe another (at least during test trials) in the bottom box to verify it got hot enough.
Add a 400W solar panel and a controller to cycle each hive once per month and now we have a commercial product.
This is interesting. How is it any different than an incubator with a humidity controller?
Great question. I don't know anything about incubators. The ones I've seen are for hatching chicken eggs and appear to control temperature and humidity. Maybe you can adapt one to work with frames of brood. I'm sure there will be beekeepers go down that path and I'd love to see what they come up with.
The market for egg incubators is huge, so the market demand brings costs down. The Varroa Controller has a small market and is made in Austria. Shipping from Austria is very expensive and slow, driving the cost up.
@AussieMikesBees I build my own incubators, and I don't see much difference. Also, having layens hives, I can't use this because it looks like a langstroth.
That’s great. That’s not my area of expertise, so I wouldn’t attempt it, but I’d be interested to hear how yours goes. Varroa Controller have a deep model that I believe takes Layens frames.
Welcome to the new bee World with varroa
Thanks, Allan. It had to happen eventually. Just another layer to keeping bees.
Der Varroa Controller hat echt einen stolzen Preis!
meinst du im Vergleich zum österreichischen Preis?
The bee sauna? but however you have to repeat this several times a year and you must love your bees a lot seeing the price tag.
It is a large capital outlay, but if you’re in beekeeping for the long term, the cost per hive per treatment is reasonable. The original machines are still in use 14years later, so it reliable. Divide the number of treatments done over 14 years compared to cost of chemical treatments in Australia. We’ll be treating almost non-stop until the mite levels stabilise, driving up the cost of chemical treatments.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the cost of a capital purchase is quickly forgotten, but an ongoing expense is an ongoing reminder of costs.
how do you run this commercially? i can't imagine the efforts involved!
Anything we do for the next few years is going to be time consuming and expensive. Even the low material cost of oxalic acid sublimation (not yet legal here) is labour intensive in that it requires treatment every five days for five treatments to cover the brood cycle. If your apiary is on a flow 250km away, that’s 2500km of travel. Could workout if it coincides with taking the supers for harvest.
With the Varroa Controller, spend a day treating the apiary with multiple machines to cover all hives. Do health checks while you’re at it. In Europe it’s done this way once each in spring, summer and autumn., which is three days work per apiary per year and no chemical costs. If they use the Duplex Framebox, that would require an extra day a couple of weeks ahead of treatment to set the queen up with two frames, so six days work per apiary per season.
It will be much more here for a few years until varroa levels stabilise.
The varroa destructor mite arrived into Australia in the Apis Cerana colonies that have been discovered to be swarming around parts of Australia. There are no apis cerana colonies that are mite free and since youve got the mite deformed wings and spotty brood will tell you when you need to treat.
Not sure where you heard that. Apis cerana so far is only in the Cairns area. It was from a single colony and every colony caught and tested since is the same genetic line. This is good news because eventually inbreeding will doom them unless they meet up with a new incursion.. There’s been no Varroa destructor found in any of the colonies so far.
The varroa outbreak in NSW is suspected to have been on illegally imported Apis mellifera queens. There hasn’t been any detection of DWV. Untreated colonies are perishing within six months from the massive infestation levels. Some washes have hundreds of mites.
Put in for order are these available in the United States no response ready to buy thanks albee
Thanks, Albee. I don’t know if there’s a US distributor, but if you go to the Euro site, they’ll either ship direct or put you in touch with your nearest distributor varroa-controller.com/varroa-controller/
You do know that varroa have been in most areas of the planet for many years. There are a few basic treatments to mitigate their damage. Learn their habits , life cycle and breeding methods. Don't start from scratch, learning to deal with them. Organic acids are very effective , relatively easy to use and you don't need a cost prohibitive, gigantic industrial machine, to keep on keeping bees.
Keep Beekeeping as the obsession.
Best wishes only. Cheers..
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Yes, I agree. Aussies have the opportunity to learn from everyone that have dealt with Varroa for decades. Unfortunately, many organic treatment options are not yet registered, so their use here is illegal. Many are doing it anyway. I am lobbying government to amend the legislation to include a New Zealand style “Own Use Exemption “ clause that would allow beekeepers to use effective, safe but unregistered products on their own hives. This would allow them to care for their bees without breaking the law.
In the meantime, I’m open to ideas from all angles. I like the idea of zero chemicals and hyperthermia looks good to me. I’ll do a series of videos when mine arrives in nine weeks.
Mites are certainly not a major problem to most beekeepers in the UK, just another part of bee husbandry. The most used treatment in the UK is a traditional wood cleaner and not authorised either due to greedy companies charging a fortune for a product that costs pence but is widely used, with care.
@@pipthedog11 thanks for your comment. Eventually it will be a normal part of bee husbandry here too. In the meantime, those that adapt will still be beekeepers and those that don’t, won’t. There are many that have made no effort to learn, let alone do anything. I’ll absorb everything I can get my eyes on and try things out.
I’ve ordered one of these devices and will be keeping a record of the practically of its use and efficacy. This is the first time it will be put to the test in an unstable establishment phase.
My obsession is unstoppable. I actually find varroa an incredibly fascinating bug. Hate them of course, but sooo interesting.
@@AussieMikesBees Although I wouldn’t wish this pest on anyone, Australia is lucky that the majority of the world now has this pest and there is a vast amount of research to alleviate the damage this pest can do if ignored. I would urge anyone who wants to follow Mike Palmer who has, for me been a lead in practical advice for beekeepers and bee farmers.
We're also lucky that we don't yet have DWV. Yes, Michael Palmer has very good sustainable beekeeping strategies. One of the good ones from which to learn.
no Layens sized controller??
Good question, Jack. There is a model with more depth that I believe accomodates Layens frames.
Here in Spain layens rules the way under the sun, but the world industry is focused on langstroth indeed
The way the government is so keen on us doing biosecurity until it's actually going to take work from them too, and then it's too hard and they just give up .. there was no need to give up and let varroa run wild in this country. They could have eradicated it if they'd just tried a bit harder. But that would have cost them money, and why would they do that when they could give up and let it cost us money forever after?
The moment varroa came to you, it's game over. You can't stop it, no one can, it's impossible.
Greetings from a beekeeper from Europe.
Once it has made it into the feral bee population it becomes impossible to contain. The Australian bush is enormous. We cannot even control the cane toad and they, are by comparison, far easier to see 🥸
what was the veroa count on hive before the treatment .need to have a starting number of veroa to know how well this works
Good point, Kevin. It doesn't exactly compare to chemical treatments that only knock out phoretic mites. This only knocks out the 80% under the caps. So a wash will show the same count immediately after treatment. In two weeks when the brood has emerged without mites it may make a count difference.
In our unstable period, we're consistently getting counts of above 30 and often way higher within days of removing treatment. Back to back treatments for the next few years. Each treatment costing $20 to $35. OA is not yet approved.
To follow up, the treated frames were fully emerged six days after treatment. The washes showed lower counts (below threshold) than before the treatment (way above threshold). My guess is that any phoretic mites present at the time of treatment are now under newly capped brood. Ideally, they would be treated now, but we don't have one of the Varroa Controllers.
I can't imagine the nightmare of doing 50 double deeps.
I run singles, so not an issue for me. If it’s done when doing an inspection anyway, it’s not much more effort. You do have to lift the boxes again to return the frames, but is that any more effort than returning weeks later to remove strips and potentially return supers?
this will work if you only have 20 to 50 hives but if you have thousand hive men i don't think you can make it
Thanks for the comment, Jordan. How many people have a thousand hives in one apiary? To me, it’s a per apiary treatment plan. You might have a few hundred hives, any single apiary has 50. With a single Varroa Controller, one person could treat 30 hives in a day. Larger apiaries could be handled by two or more VCs.
My research indicates the honeybees (in particular brood) can't handle that high of a temperature for 30 minutes, let alone 2 hours.
I’m interested to read your research. How many hives in the research, how many control hives, how many were tested at what temperatures for what periods of time? How was the health of the bees and pupae determined post treatment.
With the hives in this video, all the brood emerged within five days. There were no piles of dead bees out the front, like I’ve seen with FormicPro. Inside the hives there were loads of healthy looking, active young bees.
Ive been beekeeping in USA my whole life 59 years and the destructor mite since 1995. Its simple to organically eradicate these mites. Its a three times a year procedure. There are many things you can do that are inexpensive and very easy. That method is very complicated and would need to be done three times per year. It is expensive and time consuming. They tried to sell that device in USA years ago.
Thanks for your comment and insight. I look forward to the time when three times a year works. At the moment, we are seeing almost instant reinfestation during the establishment phase which has been predicted to last up to three years from initial infestation. Though they did predict that without DWV here, it would take up to two years for a colony to collapse. It is in fact taking only six months in many cases.
Within days of removing treatment strips, washes show 20 to 50 mites in some areas. Most of NSW have no brood breaks and good flows almost year round. Forcing brood breaks or restricting laying to two frames could become standard practice.
Many of the treatments available elsewhere aren't being registered. We're a tiny market, so it would take too long to get a return on the costs. We don't even have OA yet, though there are two OA products undergoing registration . There are of course, plenty of beekeepers using OA anyway.
I appreciate your lack of chemicals...but this is very time consuming...Formic acid is used in nature ..Fire ants.. and Formic pro and mite away quick strips can be used with supers on .
@@AussieMikesBees The government better stop procrastinating on allowing organic treatments. There is NO time to waste for the profits of their chemical mafia. The mites coming right back after treatments mean your bees are robbing dying mite infested colonies. Obviously a real mite disaster. Seems they dont care since they wont let beekeepers manage it safely.
I hear ya. Unfortunately, Australia is very much a nanny state. Bureaucrats believe they know how you should live your life better than you do. There are many beekeepers treating with OA illegally. We do what we have to do to care for our bees.
This is a rediculous amount of work. Combined with an OAV treatment on the hives after the brood is removed it could work for people with just a few hives. Without the OAV you are just putting the frames back into an infested colony.
It got real quiet when he said the price. Careful Aussies, there are going to be plenty of people after your $. Brood breaks without this expensive machine would be about as effective.
Yes, that was my first thought too. OA isn't approved yet, although many are using it anyway. The idea of the Double Frame Box is to trap most of the mites, then treat and do it again. In Europe, it's done three times a year spring, summer and autumn, but we have to treat continuously until mite levels stabilise. Mite counts rise between 30 and 100 within days of treatment removal from the massive reinfestation.
zee germans wiz zere crazy inventions 🤣
LOL. Zee Austrians consider zemselves smarter zan zee Germans.
@@AussieMikesBees 😂
Interesting, but the process is so slow. In the beekeeping world time is money.
Yes, it is more time consuming than some other treatment methods. Though, the idea of treating an apiary within one day is appealing. Not having to take supers away, return them later and coming back to remove strips saves time. I know some treatments can be done with supers on, but can taint the flavour. I’m looking forward to testing and collecting data when I get mine.
Nobody is going to that in real life…. It is better to remove the brood totally and let the bees have a broodfree time
While it’s true that most will choose a perhaps easier, chemical option, there are European beekeepers treating hives three times a year with only this device. No chemicals. At this stage, two containers of these have been sold to Australians before reaching the port.
...That ridiculous amount of work, time and initial purchase....This is not the solution, unless its for hobby!
Thanks for your comment, Gabriel. The capital outlay is out of the reach of many hobbyists, but is viable when a club buys it for members to hire for a small fee. There are many commercial beekeepers in Europe using them and being chemical free, command a higher price for their honey. They do three treatments a year, don’t have to remove supers and if necessary can treat repeatedly without concern of chemical resistance or harming bees.
As always, it’s a business decision each individual makes for their operation. One size never fits all.
This machine is nicht for finger pokin gauken lookers
Sitten bacen and watchen der blinken lights .
😁
Ja! Die svitchen ist for eine finger mit gauken lookers aus of die vay, sitten in silencen!
the only way is genetics. no need to watch this , to crazy...
Yes, I agree. Having bees that take care of mite levels will be a blessing. It’s going to take time for those genetics to develop. It’s taken Randy Oliver seven years of selective breeding and flooding his area with his genetics by giving queens to all his neighbouring beekeepers to reach a stage where mite counts are consistently low. It will take Aussie breeders years to reach that stage. Letting all the colonies die and breeding from survivor stock would decimate an important industry. That won’t happen. Hobby beekeepers can try it, but until mite levels stabilise I think they’ll be replacing colonies time and again. In the meantime, I’ll do what is necessary to keep my bees healthy.
An Irish bee keeper dumps all of his bees into a heater for an hour at the end of each season. But this is very slow.
I actually like what Cuba did. The Govt said NO TREATMENT when varroa arrived. 90% of the 200,000 hives died. Within 5 yrs they had 200,000 resistant hives and didn't need to treat. Now they sell their honey as organic honey at a premium.
I have heard of the Cuba story and its great that it worked for them. In Australia, there are so many dependant industries, there's no way they would allow 90% losses. During the eradication phase, businesses were destroyed and people on suicide watch.
@@AussieMikesBees It's not an eradication phase. Hives that were not already resistant to Varroa, died. Then they bred from the survivors. The African bees that it came from were resistant for millennia.
Yes, I understand that. I was referring to the Australian varroa eradication program before declaring that varroa is now endemic.
Can you please refer the name of the Irish beekeeper using the heat treatment as I’m hoping to begin a research project on organic varroa treatment and Irish AMM honeybee varroa resistance (SMR/VSH) breeding in Ireland. A growing number of Irish beekeepers rely solely on OA and Thymol/Apiguard treatments combined with brood breaks and drone removal to control varroa effectively as there are far too many downsides to Apivar/synthetic miticide treatments in addition to the inevitable occurrence of synthetic miticide resistance.
Never mind …I’m guessing it’s Andy Antonov of Irish Bees… literally the only 2 videos of his that I had not watched!🤦♂️ Andy is a very clever innovative beekeeper who saved my bacon when I began beekeeping last year but tbh I don’t think I’m brave enough for some of his advanced methods just yet so I’ll stick to my winter OA vapour treatment and Summer OA & thymol/Apiguard treatments for now!😅
poor bees and poor beekeepers. There has to be better and easier solution. It is defintely not a weapon. You could call this as weapon if it would solve problem completely and easy, Like you brought this device pressed the button and beehives in radius 5 m free of varroa completely.
Thanks for commenting, Alex. If someone came up with a device like that and it did no harm to anything else, they’d find instant fame and fortune. In the meantime, we do what we can until mite resistant bees become normal. I like the Varroa Controller’s zero chemical approach.
@@AussieMikesBees If Cuba has might resistant bees why not to take from there? Actually, the bees can be taken later if needed. It might worth trying to get our own in Australia.
We’re lucky for now that we don’t have the viruses, such as Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) yet. There is the very high risk of importing viruses with sperm and queens. Also, the most successful breeding programs for varroa resistance comes from local stock that is already adapted to local conditions. Imported genetics may succumb to local conditions or strains of diseases they’re not adapted to.
There has been breeders working on varroa resistance here even before varroa showed up, so we’re not starting from scratch. It’ll still take time, though.