I made mistakes with varrora last year. I will not be letting that happen again. I'm coming for you mites.

Excellent all 7 tips! Testing is key, something so simple but totally needed to measure your effectiveness or know how to react.

You are getting rain, up here in Mason Michigan we are getting snow with a possible low of 28°. Winter 🥶 is back.

Im about to start my second year, my bees survived the winter so far… i will admit i didnt test for mites last year, i did treat with apivar strips in the fall after i removed the supers, although I understand i don’t know if it worked or was needed, i do have a shaker, oxalic acid and a vaporizer, i need to do better this year

David, I agree with your approach on testing. I tested my hives 4 times last yr , treatment applied and retested. Results were ZERO. Will the same this year. Received 8 inches of snow overnight with lots of rain at times, spring not here.

We have bees in Modesto right now. It got warm enough to bloom and put the bees in the orchards, then it proceeds to rain for the next week. We had to stay an extra 3 day because the passes where closed on the way to Oregon. It accidentally snowing right now in oregon. It's been a crazy winter. Thank-you for the great info 👍

Thank you for this message I have not gotten my bees yet but I am going to learn how to make them happy bees when I get them

Thanks, great direction that makes me get busy in the beeyard

I have seen the peppermint has helped me in Darlington S.C. with hive beetles but I also use the beetle bee gone from better bee kind of like dryer sheets

Warm winters in Ga means we are into year round treatments. Brood never really drop much

I learned at my last meeting part of why oxalic acid vaporization isn't completely efficacious even during brood breaks. It is because when the mites are parasitizing an adult bee and they are nested between the scales of the bees abdomen they may avoid harm from oxalic acid. The acid needs to interact with the foot pads of the mite so if the mite is not actively walking around it may not be harmed by the treatment, especially if its feet pads are nested within the body of the bee.

I’m old school and I lean towards natural everything and I’ve maintained 500 colonies of bees naturally with no treatment, but that was back in the 70’s , beekeeping I thought was a lot of work but now that I’ve decided to get back into beekeeping after a 25 year break I know I’m going to have to do treatment of some sort to keep the bees healthy, whether it’s brood/drone management or apiguard, I like thyme based products which can be expensive if you buy it commercially, one of the benefits I have is is acres of land to grow my own thyme and make my own extracts, which I managed to save my corn with last year as well , cottonseed oil and thyme oil , it just takes a little effort and wisdom to make it work , but the big picture here is I guess to try to treat and kill off as many mites as possible because a 10 mile stretch of farm land might have many neighboring bees that commingle and transfer mites and viruses back and forth , im going to try to breed some hygienic bloodlines into my area also , it’s great to watch hygienic bees in action!

Hay I been thanking. Can we look outside outside of the box in this ? Let's look outside the hives . I mean how can we keep them out .I love your videos.

Oh that rain was heavy a couple hours north of you in Bedford Park too. My whole trailer was wet just backing into a dock to get loaded.

what mite control treatment would you use with a screened bottom board? would you put the inserts in or leave em off?

I love and understand how to use green drone frames properly to reduce mites ! My question is this. If the beekeeper just places the green drone frame in the hive and it ends up laid full of capped drone brood and they FAIL to remove it to freeze and kill the mites, would that not then actually make the mite issue worse??? By failing to remove and freeze the frame, it seems to me that you are now actually providing a breeding ground for the mites! Being that mites prefer drone cells and larvae to feed on and drones are under caps the longest, using them the wrong way would actually harm the colony.

Davit wow on the weather at least it’s just rain. We are expecting 6 inches of snow by tomorrow morning Charlie PA but I do have a question on an inner cover. The ones that you could feed through and put a pile Patty throws. Could you use a copper screen like the ones for household?

Great video David, thank you!

I treat in the fall because the brood count is going down and

I'm going to add drone comb to my mite management. How many green drone combs do I need in a double deep hive?

In one of your videos you said you were not going to add a pollen Patty to a hive cause there were a lot of small hive beetles and they would put their larva in it. If you know the time frame that small hive beetle mature, could you put in a patty then take it out before they do and freeze it to kill them? After it freezes give it back to the hive

Only problem i don't want to get queen tangled in the sheet of beetle be gone

Looks like you caught the California rain storm. We had that weather last week. Going to hit 70deg next week. Saw my first drone on the landing board today. Do you think next week would be time for a walk away split?

Why not just ALWAYS take action in spring and fall, testing or NOT?? Just treat??

Navy showers… I remember them well.

I have asked alot but do you think that oa vape shuts queen down any?

You start with mite prevention. I char my used equipment. I plant high oxalic plants. I use a misting bottle of sugar water and thymol oil. It starts a cleaning spree in the hive. And wet sticky bees can't fly and if bee pulls a sticky mites leg off it dies. I let my bees swarm. Remote county only 9000 people. They want to colonize by nature. My 10 acres I figure 5 Lazutin hives. How many hives per acre should there be. High populations and limited resources suck. Look at the hood or ghetto. I realize this is based on resources. And plant and blooming times in my given region. I will get some queen cages for brood breaks. I use white wash on my wood. The lichen on the lime helps produces a propolis high in oxalic acid. I have never seen one of my 15 frame Lazutin hives filled. Seems my bees swarm when resources are coming in. I spread my hives out to prevent bee drift. Thanks for the tips on mite treatment. I only get 9-14 days at a time with my bees being 6.5 hours north. So my bees get no help from Oct-May.

Please put a link to the video you mentioned, not everyone is on a touchscreen and can follow a link imbedded in the video! 😀

Hi David from Australia. I put the drone comb in my hive 2nd from the end and the girls just filled it with honey, how can you prevent that? They had plenty of empty honey supers to use so wasn't that.

Is there anyway to treat varola with something cheaper. I use oa Witch is cheap but do you think essential oils help in any way? The others are expensive for backyard bee keeper

Just subscribed I have 2 nucs ordered and have to pick them up next month what would you recommend is the best mite treatment I could buy? Would rather have it and not need it then need it and not have it

What treatment do you use. Thanks

Do I need to test every colony every 30 days?

Do you think mites eat into our bees underneath so we must test. Mites on their backs are not the indicator

Hi David, great content! I am near lansing mi. When do you think the winter bees are being made?what triggers the change in physiology from summer be to winterbee? Is it photoperiod? I have always thought August, if it's photoperiod then timing would be almost the same every year in a specific location

Indiana got slammed as well with high winds.

I realize I need to test more often even though I have been very lucky with my bees. I am unsure how to coordinate mite treatments with harvesting honey since some treatments cannot be done with honey supers on. Any advice?

Are there any natural way that work regarding treatment

New to bees in Australia got a box then the next day the vorrora mights just arrived in Australia 😢 did a test today and had 26 out of 50 😢😢😢😢 panicking a bit

David, for the backyard hobbyist with say 3 hives, are you testing each hive every time, or just one and assuming if it exceeds your threshold they all will?

Bee #1, What if I sting the bear I'm going to die! Yikes!

David Been loosing hives way to long. I think I just keep the you & the other bee distributors in business. Lol. Have a hive or two survive the Chicago despite me the beekeeper. Do these hives that survive the winter still have mites? Now I did one mite check, just happened to be on a very hot day. Swore I give up beekeeping before I ever do a mite check again. Do you know how to make the device Randy Oliver uses? I’m sure you don’t sit there on a hot day and do 25 hives or am I mistaken?

Preventing 14,000 mites is not a big number. If you only have 30,000 bees! That's way over the mite threshold.

How about knocking them out with a blast of carbon dioxide