Treatment free?
All beekeepers want to be treatment free. We all want healthy and happy bees that don’t require a lot of input. How do we keep healthy bees when the risk of varroa is so high?
Keeping healthy bees in the age of varroa
At The Sand Hill, our main goal is keeping our animals strong and healthy. We recognize that honey bees are animals, and as such deserve to be kept in good health. As a beekeeper in the US, I am chosing to keep bees outside of their native range, in an area that may not be ideal for them. I therefore have an obligation to actively care for my bees to make sure that they are well-fed and free from disease. While I do not advocate for witholding treatment or care from an animal that is at risk of dying from disease, I am deliberate in my effort to minimize inputs into the hive. It is a lot of work to strike this balance, and I’ve tried to share my plan and what I have learned on this page. It breaks my heart to see so many beekeepers struggle with keeping their bees alive during this high risk time. If you have any questions about what you read on this page, or want advice on your own mite-management strategy, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Photo by Dwight Wells
Towards treatment free - Breeding for better bees
I have two obligations duirng the age of varroa. The first is to my bees and the bees of my neighbors (and the wild bees). I cannot let honey bee colonies die from treatable parasites and allow unnecessary death and disease spread. My second obligation is to future bees and other beekeepers. I have to work towards a long-term solution of better bees.
I find this balance by raising queens from colonies that are bred to have varroa-resistant traits, or that have been untreated, while at the same time, keeping disease and parasite levels low through my operation. I don’t let colonies die - I focus on queen replacement. This way I get good bees, without contributing to the spread of disease.
If you are a beekeeper with no plan of raising queens, you can find this same balance. Purchase queens that have good traits. Monitor the colonies closely, and if they need treatment, then care for that colony, and replace the queen. Do not just let the whole colony die from disease. If you are interested in raising your own queens, keep reading for my system.
My system for queen selection: Each hive in my operation (usually around 100) has a numbered tag. I use pig ear tags, which I staple on - they are easy to remove and reattach. The tag is associated with the queen, and each queen gets her own sheet to record her progress. When I move the queen, I move the tag. If I sell the queen or she dies, I move her sheet to the back of the binder, and reuse the tag on another hive. Every time I inspect, I record the information about that hive on the correct sheet. Here is the queen monitoring sheets that I am using. I am hoping to add a couple more tests to look for hygienic behavior and mite grooming behavior as well, which I'll just add to the back of the sheet.
At the beginning of the season, all colonies that come out of winter strong are potential breeders. As long as they are potential breeders, I take a lot of notes, and keep track of all their characteristics on the sheet. As I compare, I can exclude colonies. If they get chalkbrood, they are out of the program. If they are mean, they are out of the program. If they don't make as much honey as everyone else in the yard, they are out of the program. By mid-summer, it is really clear which colonies are my good performers. It is also clear which colonies can handle varroa. By July/August, I know what colonies I want to use to raise queens for fall requeening and late season nucs.
Colonies that can't manage varroa on their own will get treated (and are out of the program). Colonies that didn't make the cut for get requeened, or made into nucs, or combined. Those that are doing well will still be monitored through the winter to see how they act in the fall and winter, and what they look like in spring.
Usually, only a few colonies will make it through this selection process each year - a lot will have to be treated for varroa, some will swarm, some will supercede, and some will die. Those colonies that make it are the ones that I will breed off of for the next year, and will use for my late summer requeeing.
The big thing to remember is that the properties of the colony are a product of the genetics, and the genetics of the colony are dependent on the queen. If you don’t like a colony, you don’t have to kill a bunch of innocent workers, by letting it die untreated, you need to switch the genetics – i.e. – just replace the queen. There is never a need to let a colony crash and die. Monitor, treat bees if there is a problem – requeen the colony with queens from your best hives that don’t need treatment. All your bees stay healthy, and you don’t lose colonies to preventable illness.
Photo by Andrew Potter
Monitoring for mites - Know your risk!
Looking for varroa is not the same as monitoring for varroa - you could have a lot of varroa in your colony, but not actually see any mites when you inspect. By the time you see mites, it is usually too late.
Our goal is to keep varroa populations from taking over our bees, keeping them from getting ill in the first place. Many beekeepers wait until varroa population levels are high, and then will knock back with treatments. This does not work, and is not sustainable (and is not how we treat diseases in animals). You know varroa are a risk, so you have to have a plan - use monitoring to make sure that your plan is working, and that your bees are always safe and free from parasites.
The best way to monitor varroa mite populations is to use a sugar roll or alcohol wash, because these methods allow you to get a result in terms of percent infestation. In both methods you take a known number of worker bees, dislodge the mites from them, and count the mites, calculating the mites per 100 bees (percent infestation). Mite drops on inspection boards, checking drone brood, or just looking do not give you a rate of infestation, so it is hard to know what to do with the information you get. Learn how to do an alcohol wash or a sugar roll, so you have information that can help you make decisions.
Step by step sugar roll instructions (pdf)
Lots more resources on “keepbeesalive.com”
Photo by Sarah Scott
Managing for the varroa mite
My success in beekeeping changed when I started to give varroa mites the respect they deserve. As someone who started beekeeping before varroa mites were an issue, it took a while to understand how deadly they are. Since I have made mite management a priority, I have had many years where my bees survive in good health.
Unfortunately, it is a lot of work, and I still see many beekeepers struggle to keep their bees alive and in good health. I really hope that these resources can help you keep your bees alive and healthy. Please read through them, and let me know if you have questions, or need help designing a strategy.
The key is to focus on a season-long plan that prevents mites from overtaking your hive when your winter bees are being made. In Michigan, that means my hives have to bee relatively free from varroa during August and September - right when they would naturally peak. Many beekeepers make the mistake of doing nothing until the mites are a problem - the mite populations peak, the viruses spread, and even if the beekeeper treats, the bees will still die (and spread disease to neighbors). The goal is not to ‘knock back’ but to prevent overwhelming infestation in the first place.
There is no one strategy that will work for everyone for every year. All animals are different, and all locations are different. The amount of work/input needed to keep your bees from getting overrun from varroa each year will depend on your bees, the weather/colony dynamics, and your local risk. For that reason, My philosophy is to learn a lot of tools that you can use so that you can adjust to the needs and risks facing your bees.
Personally, I am making a lot of splits and nucs and queen cells, so a lot of my varroa management is done by breaking the brood cycle. In the last few years I have started to incorporate more drone brood removal too (partially because of the joy I get by feeding it to my chickens). About 10 years ago, this was sufficient, but lately, my monitoring has shown that the disease risk has grown in my area. In most years I will treat the larger colonies with formic acid as well.