Still mites even after treatment---Now what?

[twb]

I treated with Apiguard.  Temperatures were ideal. Treatments have been off for at least 7 days. Today I pulled my varroa trays after a three day check.  Yikes.  Two trays have 75 or so mites, so that is 25 per day natural drop.  I guess I did smoke them first before pulling the trays because I needed to pull inner covers for something.  Would that skew the results so much?  So now what?  I do not have an O.A. vaporizer or anything.  I do have two trays left over.  Shall I put them on?  Would a powdered sugar treatment or two be sufficient before winter?  Why do I worry about them having enough stores for winter when the varroa are going to kill them anyway?  Any thoughts?

[Brian D. Bray]

I would feed them and do at least 2 sugar shakes about 10 days apart.  The queen should have gone into a reduced brood production mode so developing more varroa isn't as big a concern as it was.  The sugar shakes should knock down the adult mite count darastically and a follow up should catch those remaining any those that hatch out from the last "big" brood set of the season.

[hooyaman]

twb,i have a pfd file that is totally for varroa control.  It has several different methods for killing varroa mites.  I think this might help you with your problem. The web sit is:    http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/files/pests-diseases/animals/varroa/control-of-varroa-guide.pdf

[twb]

I wrote in my original post that Apiguard had been off for 7 days but I realized later that the day I took it out is the day I began my 3 day mite drop check.  The stuff was probably not too potent at that time anyway but I wanted to clear that up.


I will probably do a couple of p.s. shakes if the weather stays mild.

Thanks for the encouragement.  Lots of info in your pdf.  I will probably refer to it again.