Swanson One and Api Life Var

This hive was showing signs of a high varroa mite count; it was on solid bottom board so we couldn’t do a drop count. But the inspection of drone brood indicated lots of mites and bees were spotted with deformed wing virus. The decision was made to treat the hive a few weeks back.

API life Var requires three visits to replace the Thymol biscuits in the hive. This treatment started 14 Feb 2012. Once the treatment was finished we placed them on a new kiwimana meshboard and did a three day count

Results of the count were:-

Swanson 1 Varroa Count

Tray placed 13 Mar 2012 17:15 (0 mites)
Tray Checked 16 Mar 2012 17:15 (7 mites)

=7/72 (Hours) = 0.09 per hour
or 5/3 (Days) = 2.33 mites per day

This is as pretty low count, lets hope the count is low enough to get them through the winter.

Have you started treating your hives yet?