Spring Mite Treatment

Beekeeping is 60% knowledge, 30% weather and 10% trial and error.

What do I mean by that?

I teach second year beekeeping students to do the following:

•OA vapor treatment by March 1st
•Split their beehives by mid to late April
•Give their bees MAQ strips by May 1st

This year I decided to skip the OA treatment and only use the MAQ strips in May. Mostly because the number of bees was very high mid-February when I popped the lids to check emergency feed.

I was very impressed with what I saw! But also, because I was so busy with other stuff I just didn’t schedule myself enough time.

I saw people posting brood pictures last week on Facebook, (week of March 14th) so I decided it was time to remove my quilt boxes and do a thorough inspection.

My inspections on March 20th were crazy! I have never seen so much capped brood the 3rd week of March. I was actually looking for swarm cells because there was so much capped brood.  

I made the decision to go ahead and treat with MAQ strips now. The ideal temperature for MAQ is between 50 – 85 degrees. It may fall below 50 outside, but the hive will maintain a high enough temperature for the strips to work efficiently. After all, they are keeping their brood warm enough to hatch successfully.

In 7 days – March 27th, I will remove the MAQ strips. And my mite treatment will be done until after the honey flow is over.

After the flow, I will use apivar or apiguard. I alternate every other year with those, so they don’t lose their effectiveness.

Finally, I will use OA vapor in the fall. Setting up my hive to have healthy winter babies for the cluster.

My point of this blog is, while I teach beekeeping one way, sometimes I don’t always follow those methods. Weather and time play a big role in the decisions I make.

​I also use my gut a lot of the time. I try things and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. That’s where the trial and error come in.

I know people want a checklist of the same duties every year, on the same dates every year. That simply does not exist in beekeeping.

​In closing, keep learning, keep trying new things and remember to go with the flow…pun intended. 😉