6 mistakes in varroa treatment — and the system we've used for 25 years

Six mistakes that make a varroa treatment fail — and the system we have been treating by for 25 years. The heart of it: a monitoring board is not a measurement, it is a VOTE. Six boards on a platform; if four of them show more than twenty mites, we treat the whole platform. If one shows 40 and the rest show ten or fifteen, we don't. ⚠️ About the KAS dosage. The label says one litre; we give nine, and up to ten to colonies we suspect are heavily infested. That is our own practice, not a recommendation — the decision is yours. ⏱ Chapters 00:00 — Mistake 1: not treating in time 00:20 — Mistake 2: not checking what the product does to the bees 00:51 — Mistake 3: treating the whole apiary with no boards 01:17 — Mistake 4: not counting the drop 01:40 — Mistake 5: using a single product 02:07 — Mistake 6: relying on the autumn treatment alone 02:21 — How we treat: the product and choosing the colonies 02:54 — Why colonies with queens of different ages 03:21 — What is written on a board 03:52 — The interval between treatments: five days 04:09 — The whole system, step by step 05:06 — How many rounds a season takes 05:22 — KAS-81: we give more than the label says 06:30 — Two products, and the decision for the platform 07:21 — A board is a vote 07:38 — Counting a big drop quickly 08:15 — Summing up 🔢 HOW THE DECISION IS MADE Boards do not go into every colony, only into chose n ones — two for each age of queen, because young queens lay for longer and the drop behaves differently in them. A day after treating we count the drop on every board. If most boards show more than twenty mites, the whole platform is treated the next day. Five days later we treat the test colonies again and count again. Under twenty, we stop. The most we have ever done is four rounds. 🧮 A BIG DROP When there are a lot of mites, we split the drop in four with a knife, count one quarter and multiply by four. #beekeeping #varroa #varroamite #beekeeper #bees #apiary #mitetreatment #honeybees