Varroa treatment with young queen

[Mellifera Crofter]

I belong to an AMM breeding group up here in the North-East. We thought we’ve found a beekeeper-free site in the Cabrach for our mating apiary - but it turned out we’re not alone.

There just might be somebody near your Varroa-free site as well.
Kitta

[Adam]

"Personally I wouldn't trust any combination of treatments to make the hive mite-free". I agree!

It's also the case that you never know where another colony is - kept or wild.
Drones and queens can travel quite a distance to mate too..

[Feckless Drone]

I've noted a new product from Lyson, oxalic acid/glycerin strips for Varroa treatment. Is this treatment approved in the UK, and does anyone have any experience with it?
I like the idea of a treatment in the spring that knocks the mite population back a bit before the drone raising and expansion gets going. The placement of oxalic acid in this way is similar to approaches that Randy Oliver describes but he uses paper towels and I suspect the new strips are
designed to stay active for a longer period hence giving a chance to have some effect over more than 1 brood cycle.

As an aside - been checking colonies and in Tayside we have had a relatively benign winter. Bees have not been cooped up for too long, with a few mild days to let them out and move stores around, and if well fed in the autumn then I think the percentage coming into spring should be very high.
Pleasing not to see any signs of dysentery. BUT! even though colony strength looking good there is still a bit to go.

[mbc]

Oxalic/glycerine soaked cardboard strips are quietly taking over from any other weapon in the organic beekeepers arsenal against varroa (so I'm told by a friend!).
Easy and safe to make at home, cheap as chips and most importantly, effective, with little to no residue worries.
My friend has been exclusively using this method of varroa control for two seasons with promising results on several hundred colonies, one treatment with these strips after the supers come off has provided much better results than with the previous regime of thymol in the Autumn followed by oxalic in the middle of winter