We think we have Varroa….

So, last time I said we hadn’t seen any Varroa on the bees. Mmmm, so I shouldn’t have said that aloud because nearly the very next day there was one! I like to think it was just one, you know like there is only ever just the one rat in the garden or one lonely mouse in your kitchen?

But off we went into overdrive to eradicate (it will be too late) varroa in our hive. Taking some advice from a nice lady at Thornes (feel free to sponsor or advertise on my blog, Thornes!) whose job is to be a Bee Expert, we ordered Apistan to put into the hive.

You might remembered that we said we should have treated in August so Apistan is the treatment you can give a bit later in the year. It is a sheet of sticky plastic that hangs in between the frames giving off a pesticide. Sounds awful right? It is the least scary of the ones we researched, apart from treating with icing sugar but we were too late for that.

Icing sugar can be used for varroa because the bees are sprinkled with it and then try and groom to clean it off (and of course they like anything sugary) and in the process they brush off the varroa mites and they reduce in the hive.

Fingers crossed, we are due to remove it in a couple of weeks. We won’t know if it has worked until spring!!