Laurence Edwards explains how to use Apivar or Apitraz strips in early spring to control Varroa mites before the honey flow. Insert two strips eight weeks before adding supers, space them three frames apart in the brood cluster, and leave them for eight weeks. Spring treatments work less efficiently than fall ones because bees move around less, but they're valuable if you missed earlier treatments or have new untreated bees.
Chapters
In this video, I'm going to talk to you about using Apivar or Apitraz to kill varroa in the spring. Now, Apitraz or Apivar is exactly the same thing. It's basically a chemical strip using a chemical called amitraz. It's proven over the years to be a highly effective treatment with minimal resistance shown to using it repeatedly throughout the years. Not to say that resistance won't build up at some point, but at the moment it's only minimal resistance that's being shown. However, Apivar is generally used as an autumn or late summer treatment. I like to bring that treatment right forward, so I go in middle of August, back end of August, take all of my honey off, put my Apivar strips in, feed my colonies, leave it for 8 weeks, and then when I come and do my final feed, I take the Apivar or Apitraz strips out, and then my colonies are treated for winter. Now I supplement that treatment with Apibioxal during a broodless period during the back end of November, but what I want to talk about in this video is using Apivar or Apitraz as a spring treatment. It's not often used as a spring treatment, but it's a highly effective way to ensure that your colonies are going through the season or coming into the new season with the absolute minimum amount of varroa. Now, what I would say to people— get the caveat straight out there— is that if you've treated your bees properly in late summer, early autumn, and the winter period, you shouldn't have to do this as a treatment. But if you, for whatever reason, have skipped that treatment or you feel that your colony's suffering from a high varroa load, or you bought bees that you know haven't been treated, highly recommend doing it as a spring treatment because it's super, super easy and very, very effective. So in order to use it effectively, you need to make sure that the strips are coming into contact with the brood area. Now I know people say don't open your colonies when it's cold, and obviously, you know, if it's like 3 degrees outside, you don't want to be opening a colony, leaving the roof off, letting the rain come in and watching the bees struggle in that really poor temperature. But nipping in for 10 seconds to chuck a couple of Apivar strips in is no problem whatsoever for the bees, and they will just bring that brood temperature back up very, very quickly. So it shouldn't stop you going in at that point to do the treatment. Now, all you need to do with a spring Apivar treatment is ensure that you put your strips in 8 weeks before you plan to put your supers on. So if you're going to put your supers on, say, the middle of April, which is probably around average, You want to go in and put your Apivar strips in no later than the middle of February. If you go in middle of February, choose a nice relatively warm day, take the lid off, 2 strips slap bang in the middle of the cluster, just really, really gently push them down in between, make sure they're at least 3 frames apart, put the roof back on, come back 8 weeks later, take the strips out, and that is the treatment complete. Now it's not going to be quite as effective as a late summer treatment, a treatment. Reason being is the way that Amitraz works is that it has a chemical impregnated on the strips. The bees kind of walk over it like that, and it's the bees moving with their little feet and walking over the brood, over the eggs, over the larvae. They spread that all the way throughout the colony, and then it becomes toxic to the varroa mite. Now, when the bees are clustered up in the spring, you're not going to get that much movement, but you will still get a little bit of movement, especially in polyhives. Like, I open up a polyhive today, it's It's 11 degrees here today. You'll see the bees are moving all over the place inside. The difference between the outside temperature and the inside temperature in a poly hive is noticeable, so you will find that the bees will still move around. And it is as simple as that. It's a very effective treatment, it's a really simple application, and if your bees have not been treated prior to that season, it gives you the best chance of getting your bees through to the point where you're taking the supers off at the end and you apply your treatments as normal. Give it a go, it really does work.
